Power Of Three
by RosalindHawkins
Summary: The prequel to "Mumbleshipping." How did Ryou finally move on after being freed from the Spirit of the Ring? How did Duke learn to leave his promiscuity behind him for a real relationship? How did Seto learn to open his heart up to someone else? Contains language, mild violence, self-harm, angst, smut/lemon. Minorshipping, Mastershipping, Euroshipping, and Mumbleshipping. Yaoi.
1. Prologue

In the latest hours of the night, the earliest hours of the morning, three aching souls revel in their pain, for they have little else. They don't know it yet, but one day, their souls will no longer ache, having found comfort in each other's embrace like the triple strands of a braid where all three parts are required for fulfillment.

Until such a time, they suffered separately in isolation. Soon, though, events would be set in motion that would inexplicably alter the course of their life for the better. Soon, the suffering would come to an end and they would know true love.

* * *

Duke Devlin took a long drag from his cigarette as he leaned against the lamppost on his street corner. It was two in the morning and the girl he'd picked up at the club was sound asleep in his bed. His game store was successful, Dungeon Dice Monsters was trending, he was completely independent. He had friends, a good income, complete freedom, and he was incredibly good looking. He should have been happy, but he wasn't.

A car with dark tinted windows driving a little too slowly turned the corner then and stopped in front of Duke. He tensed, and as a pair of well-muscled grunts stepped out of the back seat, he dropped his cig and extinguished it with the toe of his shoe.

"We've been through this before, you know the drill," said the one with the snake tattoo wrapped around his right bicep. Duke just sighed.

"Yeah, I know the drill," he answered, letting the two force him into the backseat of the limo, squashing him between them. He'd tried running before, and it had never ended well. He'd learned that it was just easier to play along with them until their demands were satisfied and he could go free again. The mafia lord sat opposite him in the limo, flanked by another pair of mobsters that were under his control.

"Hey, Vicky, how's the wife?" Duke said rather facetiously to one of the mobsters. "And Marco, my man, how's your little girl? She's fifteen now, right? They grow up so fast." His smile was as false as the artificial flavoring of cheap candy.

The mob boss narrowed his eyes at Duke. "Your old man owes us more than ever before," he informed the sassy gamer. "We've already warned him twice, and he hasn't paid a cent." He started to crack the knuckles of his thick, large hands. "You're not going to get off quite so easily this time."

Duke could feel his smile fading a little, so he made an effort to reinforce it. "Alright, but whatever you do, just try not to hit the face, okay guys?" he said, sounding way too cheerful given the circumstances. He'd learned to adapt to these situations, and it gave him a vague sense of control that made all of this so much more bearable than it otherwise would be.

* * *

Ryou Bakura sat back on his heels in front of the toilet, sighing a little now that it was over. He pulled himself to his feet and stumbled to the kitchen of his tiny apartment. He filled a glass with water and drank it slowly so that his stomach didn't get upset again. After all, there was nothing left in his stomach. He'd already completed emptying its contents that evening, now he just wanted to sleep. When he finished his water, he walked unsteadily to bed, tugging off his t-shirt and shoving off his jeans before crawling under the covers in search of something like sleep.

He knew that he needed some serious help. When his anxiety got so strong that he couldn't hold down his dinner most days, he'd begun to realize that. The problem with anxiety, though, was that he was too anxious to talk about his problems with anybody. Other obstacles also prevented him from seeking help, like the fact that he couldn't afford a professional therapist. If he talked to a professional therapist, they'd probably think that he was severely disturbed and needed some kind of long-term treatment, or medication, or both, which committed him to a long-term monetary investment as well.

He didn't even need to use the Spirit of the Millennium Ring as an excuse for not getting help; there were plenty of other things to stop him. He was well aware that if he tried to tell a therapist that he was genuinely possessed by the evil spirit of an ancient Egyptian thief, they'd lock him up in the loony bin, and that was the last thing he wanted. Ryou felt the center of his left hand start to ache at the thought of the evil spirit, and he cradled it against his chest by the five scars left behind by the Millennium Ring itself. It always did that now that he wasn't around.

 _"Poor Yadonushi. You feel lonely now that I'm gone. I always said you would miss me, didn't I?"_

The words were only his own imagination, he knew, but they still made his eyes water with tears. Bakura had been with him for so long that he knew his speech patterns far too well. His voice—so like Ryou's, yet completely distinct—was something Ryou would never forget.

* * *

Seto Kaiba sat back against the bathroom wall, staring into space as he fought the urge to cut again. He buried his face in his hands as he struggled to maintain a degree of composure. He couldn't stand that he was on the verge of relapse yet again. He'd completely quit two years ago, cut only once last year after Battle City. He was doing well. He wasn't going to screw it up again over something so stupid.

"You quit," he whispered, disgusted with himself. "You don't need this anymore." He closed his eyes and shuddered before he put his hands on the floor and forced himself to stand. At the sink, he glared at his own reflection until all he could see was his step-father laughing at the adoptive son he'd beaten down repeatedly, with his words and his fists and his weapons.

"Gozaburo, go fuck yourself."

Kaiba raised his own fist and smashed it into the mirror, shattering the glass, which splintered into his skin, but he didn't care. He smashed his fist into the glass again and again until he heard a young voice screaming at him to stop. Mokuba pulled him away from the sink as Seto's anger began to simmer down.

"Seto…" The child was at a loss for words at the moment, struggling within himself as he tried to figure out how best to rebuke his older brother.

"I'm sorry," the brunette whispered, looking numb as blood dripped from his glittering hands.

"This needs to stop," his brother whispered, starting to cry as his anger surfaced. "I hate how you keep breaking things and hurting yourself! I know you don't like to make promises, but I need you to make a promise to me." His stormy eyes were quite serious as they fixed his brother's sapphires with a hard stare. "I need you to promise me that nothing like this will happen again."

"I promise," Seto murmured. He couldn't deny Mokuba that when he knew it was the right thing to do. Besides, he hated upsetting Mokuba as much as Mokuba hated this bad habit of his.

"Good." Mokuba carefully took hold of Seto's hand and led him out of the bathroom, out of the bedroom, and into the hallway, taking him to Seto's personal doctor downstairs. His brother followed numbly, too tired to resist.

* * *

 **Author Notes:** I am so friggin' proud of myself for making the three sections focusing on each character the exact same word-count: 392. The number has no significance itself, but I made them all the same, which means I achieved total equality for three of my favorite Yu-Gi-Oh men! I love these boys. :-* I'd marry them all if I could. ;)

This is a prequel to my "Mumbleshipping" fic, so if you like this, go check that out too!

Please review, because _**more reviews = more chapters!**_


	2. Apology

"Come on, even when you get arrested, the police give you one phone call from jail." Duke looked from one gangster to the other, trying to gauge how persuasive his argument was. "I can put it on speakerphone, you can hear the whole thing, and I swear I won't tell anyone what's happened. I just need to let my employees know that I won't be coming in and reschedule a meeting I had with a friend so that he doesn't think I stood him up."

The mobsters looked at each for a few long moments, then they turned back to him. "You get one call," the taller one said. "One call, on speakerphone, and if you try to tip them off, we'll mess up that pretty face of yours. Deal?"

"Sounds fair," Duke replied breezily, successfully hiding any nervousness he felt. "Okay, now let me think of a good lie to tell them so that they don't get suspicious." He sat and thought for a few moments, then said, "Okay, I thought of it. Are you ready for the number?"

Duke's hands were tied behind his back, so it was clearly out of the question that he should dial the number himself. The lackey started to pull out his own phone, but Duke stopped him.

"Wait, we should probably use mine so that he doesn't get suspicious. You know, caller ID and all that."

The lackey reached into Duke's pocket and pulled out his cell.

"Okay, now go to contacts and find Ryou Bakura, then call his cell number."

The lackey followed Duke's instructions, then put the call on speakerphone as it rang. It was after eight in the morning, so he should be awake by now. After the third ring, Duke was starting to get nervous, but he sighed with relief a moment later when Ryou picked up.

"Hi Duke, what's up?" There was a forced cheerfulness in his tone, a nuance that wasn't lost on the dice-master.

"I'm calling to ask you a favor. I got a call from my mom's rehab facility last night. They said that there were some… health complications. It might be nothing, but I'm driving out to Kyoto to see her." Duke hated using his mother in order to lie, but at least he was lying for a noble purpose: self-preservation. "I've been trying to call Suki so that she knows I won't be coming in for the next few days, but she's not picking up. Do you think you could swing by my store and let her know that I won't be coming in?"

"Sure, of course," Ryou answered, exhaustion underscoring his attempt at a positive tone. "I'm sorry to hear that about your mom. I hope she's alright."

"Yeah, me too," Duke answered with a sad sigh. "I know we were supposed to meet for coffee tomorrow. Since I'm cancelling on such short notice, how about I make it up to you by making you dinner on Friday. You can come by my apartment around six. How does that sound?"

"That sounds nice, thank you," Ryou replied, sounding somewhat… relieved, although Duke couldn't quite figure out why.

"Are you doing alright, Ryou?" Duke was worried about him; Ryou had said that there was something he wanted to tell Duke, something he wanted advice about. He was worried. He and Ryou had become good friends in the past year after the Egypt fiasco—bonding over their self-reliance and their lone-wolf lifestyles—and lately Ryou had seemed especially troubled.

"I'm… well enough," Ryou answered vaguely. "Don't worry about me, okay? We'll talk more on Friday. I'll tell Suki that you won't be in for a few days. I hope your mom gets better."

"Thanks. I'll see ya Friday."

"See ya."

The mafia grunt hung up Duke's phone, then put it back in their captive's pocket. For a moment, there was silence.

"Anybody up for tic-tac-toe?" Duke suggested, already bored.

* * *

After hanging up with Duke, Ryou redirected his path. He'd been on his way to another meeting with a friend, but he could stop by the Black Clown on his way. It was only a small detour. After fulfilling his promise to Duke, he made his way to the cafe where he was supposed to meet Marik.

He was in town for maybe a week, though Ryou didn't know why. Marik had called Ryou asking for a meeting, and Ryou had tentatively accepted the offer. He hadn't forgotten the events of Battle City. More had happened during those days than anybody else realized. It was a burden that Ryou carried, unable to share it with anyone. It was a burden he carried alone out of necessity. It seemed like Marik was here to make amends, though.

"I've been seeing a therapist ever since the Battle City Finals," Marik explained, his hands wrapped around the large mug that held his hazelnut latte. "He's been helping me work through a lot of things so that nothing like that ever happens again." He looked a little uncomfortable speaking about this, but he also seemed to determined to say what he thought needed to be said. "Part of me getting closure for that is apologizing to the people I hurt." He took a deep, calming breath before he continued. "I am so sorry for what we did to you," the Egyptian teen apologized earnestly as he sat across the table from Ryou, who sipped his green tea nervously. "We were awful to you. "There's no excuse for it, for any of it, and I want to make things right with you." He held his breath as he waited for a response.

"Thank you, but it's okay, Marik, you don't have to—"

"It's _not_ okay," Marik insisted, looking pained as he recalled in detail what he'd done to Ryou. "I told him to stab you. I'm the reason you were hospitalized. I'm the reason you were sent to the Shadow realm with him." Ryou shivered at that reminder. "I'm the one who suggested to him that we, well…" He stared down into his latte uncomfortably, his cheeks tinged red with shame. Ryou knew why, because his own face with flaming now too. "It was atrocious, what we did to you."

Ryou laughed a soft, cold, bitter laugh. "That wasn't the worst thing Bakura's done to me in my soul room. Besides, it was still better having you there than facing him alone," Ryou admitted, his eyes fixed on his tea before he took another sip of it.

"You shouldn't downplay it like that," Marik murmured, looking up at Ryou again. "I'm deeply sorry for doing it, and I feel awful. I can't forgive myself for it until you forgive me first." His pale purple eyes were pleading now, and Ryou took pity on him.

"I forgive you, Marik." He understood that both of Marik's personalities had been far from sane at the time, and while that didn't release him from responsibility for his actions, it made it easier for Ryou to forgive him. Besides, Ryou still placed the blame for that on Bakura. _He'd_ been the one to invite Marik to their soul room, after all. It had been _his_ idea, and he'd been the one to cause Ryou the most pain. Marik, by contrast, had seemed mildly affectionate towards Ryou, even as he used him with the cold inconsiderate intentions of a sociopath.

"Thank you." Marik looked relieved as he received forgiveness from Ryou, feeling that burden of guilt lifting from his shoulders. "And I… I wanted to ask you something else."

He was still blushing as he reached out to hold Ryou's hand where it rested on the table. Ryou looked up at him in confusion, surprised by the gesture.

"I started to like you during Battle City, in my own strange way. I didn't understand it very well then, and I _certainly_ didn't express it properly. I wanted to know if you'd be willing to give me a chance. I promise that I'm cured, and I'll never hurt you again. I-I like you, a lot." Marik looked like he wanted to say more, but he just shut his mouth then, waiting for Ryou to answer.

"I'm flattered, Marik," he began slowly, his heart racing as his stomach began to feel queasy. "But I'm not ready for a relationship right now, with anyone. I'm still trying to… figure things out myself, you know?"

Marik nodded with understanding; he knew what Ryou was talking about, even though he wouldn't say it. Having an evil yami was something that it took time to recover from; the longer you'd had your yami for, the longer it took to recover. Ryou gave Marik's hand a small squeeze before he released it.

"Thank you for the offer, and it's nothing personal, but I can't." They sat in silence for a minute before Ryou excused himself to the restroom, the nausea too strong for him to fight it down. So much for holding onto his breakfast.

* * *

Seto cursed himself as he struggled to type with his restricted fingers. The bandages were on his knuckles, which had carried the force of his blows against the mirror, but they limited the range of movement for his fingers, and now he was starting to regret punching out the mirror.

 _That_ was what bothered him, not the pain, not Mokuba's disapproval and concern, not Roland's silent scolding, not the doctor's disappointment at tending to Seto's hands for self-inflicted injury yet again.

He was frustrated with his new difficulty with typing, but he was still proud of himself for not cutting. It was a small victory, made even smaller by the fact that he'd still hurt himself, just in a different way.

He'd been clean for two years, save his relapse after Battle City, so he didn't know what was driving him back to it now. Gozaburo was gone, and even though he rarely went a day without remembering his step-father—his inheritance, from his company to his mansion to his fortune, were all so thoroughly tainted by him that it was impossible to escape his memory, his presence, his influence—he would have thought that the absence of the man would be sufficient to alleviate the massive pressure he'd always imposed upon Seto.

He quickly redirected his thoughts. Thinking about his step-father would just make it worse. He needed to distract himself with work. He pondered briefly the fact that other people usually talked to a friend or family member about their problems. Even if it worked for other people, it didn't matter. He didn't want to do it, and it wasn't exactly an option that was available for him anyways.

* * *

"This," Duke said as he tapped the box of floral tea with his finger splint, "Will help you relax when you're feeling anxious. It has lavender and chamomile, both of which are known for those properties. It also has rose petals, which help fight depression, among other things. And this," now he tapped the box of lemon ginger tea, "Should help with the nausea." He thought for a moment, then turned around and withdrew a package of candied ginger from a cabinet, placing it with the boxes of tea before he pushed them across the counter towards Ryou. "This will help with that too. Try using them for a week and let me know if they help."

Ryou accepted the offered items gratefully, pleasantly surprised by Duke. "Thank you so much. I will."

They'd finished eating dinner, during which Duke had answered Ryou's questions about his mom at rehab, which Duke had answered vaguely and evasively, feeling somewhat guilty that he wasn't being honest about what had really happened. He couldn't bear to tell him that he'd been abducted again, and that this time, for each day that his father didn't deliver the money he owed, they broke one of Duke's fingers.

It had taken three days for Mr. Devlin to make enough earnings to pay back his debt, which meant that Duke now had three broken fingers on his left hand. When they'd let him go, he'd gone straight to the hospital to get his hand treated. He told him that he'd broken his fingers by getting his hand accidentally smashed in a door, and he'd told Ryou the same thing.

At dinner, Ryou'd finally confided in Duke about his anxiety issues. He was the first one that Ryou told, and while doing so had been a nerve-wracking decision, he was already feeling glad that he had.

He looked at the boxes of tea, then looked up and asked, a little embarrassed, "Could I perhaps try one of them now?"

"Of course," Duke answered with a kind smile. He filled the kettle with water and put it on the stove with the flame on high beneath it. He got a pair of mugs out and handed one to Ryou, who had chosen to try the ginger tea—he was already feeling nauseous after eating more than he was used to eating at one time.

"Has the nausea affected your eating habits?" Duke asked, raising an eyebrow at his friend as he pulled out a box of peppermint tea for himself.

"Yeah," Ryou admitted with a sigh, staring into the empty mug. "It's… hard to eat when I know that it probably won't stay down, and then my stomach will start hurting after a while. I try to just eat a little bit at a time, because I thought that might make it easier for it to stay down, but that doesn't seem to be helping."

"Are you eating three meals a day?" Duke asked, suspicion nagging at the back of his mind.

Ryou shook his head and answered quietly, "No, more like one and a half, on average. Every few days I'll try eating more, but it never seems to work out. I mean, I do have to eat _something_ , because if I try going hours with nothing at all, I'll pass out, so I manage to keep my blood sugar up with soda and hard candies, but it's just not enough."

Duke thought for a few moments, wondering if he should dare to investigate this further. Yes, he should, he decided. It was for Ryou's own good. "Have you lost weight since this started?"

Ryou shrugged noncommittally as he continued to avoid meeting Duke's gaze. Duke put a hand on Ryou's shoulder and led him to the bathroom, pulling out the scale, setting it on the floor in front of him, and looking at Ryou meaningfully. Ryou was too meek to protest, and besides, Duke was physically capable of forcing him onto the scale, so he stepped onto it on his own. He couldn't bring himself to look down at the numbers, but Duke was watching the digit display on the scale as he waited for the results.

"Ryou, you're far too light." Duke looked up at him, his voice serious and concerned as he continued, "You're either underweight, or very close to it."

Ryou started to tremble, his face burning red with shame as he looked away from Duke again. His breathing was shallow as he swallowed hard, unable to resist the anxiety attack as it hit him with sudden force, dozens of fears flying through his mind at lightning speed.

"It's okay," Duke assured as he pulled Ryou off the scale and hugged him tightly. He was no expert, but he could see what was happening. "Just breathe, Ryou. Breathe."

Ryou struggled against the hyperventilation, trying to regain control. He squeezed his eyes shut as he felt the urge to be sick. _No, not now,_ he mentally pleaded with himself. _Please, not now, not here._

"You're going to be alright," Duke continued, trying to help him calm down. "You're not alone. You have help. You have me."

His words were intellectually reassuring, but his nausea was too strong to fight anymore, and Ryou found it impossible to hold back any longer. He broke free from Duke's hug and dropped to his knees in front of the toilet just in time. Duke held back his hair for him, filled with pity for his friend.

When Ryou was done, he sat back on his heels and tore off a piece of toilet paper with which to wipe his mouth. Duke disappeared for a moment and returned with some bottled water and a piece of the candied ginger. Ryou drank in small sips, Duke remaining silent as he tried to think of the best thing to say. When his friend started nibbling on the ginger, Duke gently pulled Ryou over so that he was now sitting at Duke's side.

"How are you feeling?" Duke asked quietly, prompting Ryou to burst into tears. He enveloped his poor friend in a warm embrace, letting Ryou lean against him for support.

"I feel awful," Ryou sobbed, allowing himself to enjoy the rare luxury of being physically close to someone. "I'm so tired of feeling sick all the time."

Duke handed him some tissues as he replied, "Thank you for telling me about this. I promise I'll help you so that you're not suffering like this anymore. You may feel awful now, but you'll get better."

"Thank you," Ryou sniffled, closing his eyes as he leaned against Duke's chest for a few moments. "I'm so tired…"

"You haven't been sleeping well either? You should have said so. I have a tea for that too."

"Since when are you so well versed in natural remedies and herbal teas?" Ryou asked curiously, his tears starting to subside the more he spoke with Duke.

"Do you remember Orihime?"

"Isn't she that girl you dated a few months back? The one with the really long hair?"

"Yeah. We only dated for a few weeks because she was too much of a hippie flower-child for me, but she was really into that stuff, and I learned a few things from her before we broke up and she left to join a commune."

"Oh." Ryou focused on breathing deeply as he rested against Duke, not quite ready to stand yet. He felt Duke's hand gently take Ryou's own trembling hand and wrap his fingers around his wrist, measuring his pulse. It was still too high for a resting rate, but it was gradually going down. They sat like that for a few more minutes, but were soon disturbed by the whistling of the kettle.

* * *

"I don't understand why you do that." Mokuba's expression betrayed his anger, his confusion, his disappointment. "What do you accomplish by breaking the mirror and ruining your hands?"

Seto had managed to stay busy all week, hoping to avoid having this conversation with his brother, hoping that the child would forget about what had happened before he got a chance to confront his older brother.

He sighed and answered, "It doesn't matter. You—"

"Yes, it does!" Mokuba stomped his foot to punctuate his statement. "You're hurting yourself, and I don't _want_ you to. Why do you do it?"

Seto swallowed hard. Mokuba had no idea how much Seto _used_ to hurt himself in a much more deliberate way. He restrained the urge to urge to scratch at his wrists—they always felt prickly and itchy whenever he thought about cutting—and straightened up in his office chair.

"If I promise not to do it again, will you be satisfied with that?" Seto offered. He'd promised Mokuba the night it occurred, but that had been in the heat of the moment, and Mokuba knew that wasn't as good as a promise made in a state of calm consideration.

Mokuba's expression became more thoughtful as he weighed his options. Each time something like this happened, he would pester Seto to promise that he wouldn't do it again, and Seto would refuse. He would say that he would try, but he couldn't honestly make that promise. The chance of him breaking it was just too high. While the reason for this behavior was a secret Mokuba desperate wished to be told, he decided that his brother's wellbeing was more important than his own curiosity.

"Do you promise?" Mokuba asked seriously, giving his brother a look that said, "If you break this promise, I will do everything in my power to punish you for it."

"I promise."

"Pinky promise?"

Seto smiled a little and held out his hand, pinky extended. Mokuba came closer and linked his pinky with Seto's. "I pinky promise." He kissed his little brother's forehead as his young face settled into a content expression of relief.

"Good." Mokuba seemed satisfied with that.

"Now, it's time for you to go to bed." Seto unlinked his pinky from Mokuba's and turned back to his laptop.

"But I'm not even tired," Mokuba complained.

"Then you're playing too many videogames and not running around enough."

"You're one to talk!" Mokuba was looking indignant again. "You _make_ the videogames I play. Besides, I don't have anyone to play with."

Seto glanced over at his brother, feeling a pang of guilt. It wasn't Mokuba's fault that he couldn't seem to make any friends at school. It was Seto's. Everyone knew KaibaCorp and its young executive, and the kids in Mokuba's class were no exception. They'd tried befriending Mokuba for the benefits that would come along with being his friend. Mokuba had been too smart for them, and as such had turned away all attempts at friendship—a behavior disturbingly similar to his big brother. Seto felt responsible for any loneliness his brother experienced because of his brother's affluence and success, but he had yet to think of a way to remedy the situation. He'd let Leon von Shroeder visit with them a few times, since he and Mokuba had hit it off at the KC World Championship, but a certain… altercation between the elder brothers had separated them for good. Rebecca Hawkins had visited a few times too, and the two got along well enough, but Rebecca was also a college student who helped her grandfather with his research, so she had extremely limited availability. _Maybe I should get him a pet,_ Seto thought, not for the first time. He quickly dismissed the idea, doubting that it would do any good. Animals weren't a real substitute for human interaction.

"How are your hands?" Mokuba asked softly, and Seto held them out for his brother. The bandages he still wore covered the healing skin, but his knuckles weren't so badly cut that they would scar permanently. The worst case scenario was that there were still bits of glass dust under his skin, and they were harmless.

"Do they hurt?" Mokuba was studying the bandages as if staring hard enough would let him see through them.

"No," he lied. "In a couple of weeks, you'll hardly be able to tell that anything happened."

Mokuba shivered as he remembered how those very same hands had looked when they were dripping blood and sparkling with bits of broken mirror-glass.

"Never again?" Mokuba asked, looking up at his brother again with uncertainty. He needed assurance, which was exactly what Seto gave him when he lifted his brother into his lap and hugged him close.

"Never again. I promise."

* * *

 **Author Notes:** If you want to know what event Marik is talking about, check out my Tornshipping one-shot in my Miscellaneous One-Shots collection, because that one-shot is actually part of the canon for this story. ^_^


	3. Problems

"I don't know why, I'm just not really happy," Duke admitted with a shrug. "Sure, business is good, one-night stands are fun, and I have friends, but I'm not satisfied with anything. I can forget that most of the time, whenever I'm working, in the club, or hanging out with friends, but when I'm alone at the end of the day, I feel like it's all just not enough."

Duke was talking to a bartender he'd been friends with for a few years, and since the bar wasn't busy right now, Duke felt comfortable enough talking through his personal problems.

"You know, someone else was telling me the same thing the other day," the bartender commented thoughtfully while he cleaned a wineglass. "He was sexually active, like you, and he told me his psychologist recommended he go on a sex-strike for a few months so that he could focus on investing emotionally in his relationships with other people, or something like that."

"Do you really think that could work?" Duke asked dubiously.

The bartender shrugged and answered, "I don't know, but if that's what the doctor orders, and you really want to make a change, I would give it a try."

"Thanks for the advice. I'll think about it."

* * *

As the month of August drew to a close, Duke was getting worried about Ryou. He hadn't managed to gain back any of the weight he'd lost, although he hadn't lost any more in the past four weeks. The herbal teas were helping, and Ryou'd bought more online in bulk, stocking up because he knew he would need it. He was throwing up a little less often than before, and he was getting more sleep. He'd only had one panic attack since the day he'd confided in Duke, which was a much-needed improvement. He'd even talked Ryou into a daily yoga regimen, since yoga, among other benefits, supposedly reduced anxiety and depression. Ryou, however, was still jittery, still too easily made anxious by the smallest things. He knew that he had a problem. He knew that this wasn't normal. He knew that he needed help. He also knew that he couldn't afford professional help, even though it would greatly benefit him.

To make matters worse, his eighteenth birthday was coming up. All his life, his absent father had been sending him rent checks in the mail. He'd always assumed, though, that the checks would stop when he turned eighteen and his father was no longer legally responsible for his son's wellbeing. Sure, Ryou had a job, and he had always known that he'd need to prepare for the day he was entirely on his own, but he needed his savings to pay rent, and he needed whatever was leftover for sustenance and security.

There was about a week until his birthday when Duke noticed that something was off about Ryou. He seemed more anxious than usual, and if something was causing him distress, Duke made it his business to know.

"Is something bothering you?" Duke asked as he watched Ryou sip his tea. They were in Ryou's apartment because he'd wanted to return Duke's offer of hospitality.

"Yeah," Ryou said softly. "I am worried. I know that my dad's checks will stop coming once I'm eighteen, and I know that, after everything I want through with the Spirit of the Ring, I should have gotten professional help long ago. Things haven't been this bad before, and you are helping me a lot, but it's…" The last thing Ryou wanted to do was insult his friend who'd done so much for him, so he was hesitant to finish his sentence.

"It's not enough," Duke finished, understanding him completely. "I would be the first to admit that I'm not a certified therapist or psychologist or whatever. I agree that you would benefit from professional help more than you would benefit from my help alone. So what's stopping you?"

"I just can't afford it," Ryou answered, looking hopeless. Something occurred to Duke then, and before he could second guess himself, let it come out.

"Move in with me."

"Excuse me?" Ryou seemed shocked by the offer.

"If rent is what's worrying you, then move in with me," Duke said, liking the idea even more the longer he thought about it. "I own the building, because my apartment's above the shop. We can split the cost of utilities, and both of us will pitch in for the cost of groceries. I have an extra bedroom you can stay in, and there's plenty of space for the both of us. That way you don't have to worry about rent, and you can get the help you need." It made perfect sense to him. "We already talk on a daily basis, and that way I'm always close by if you need help."

Ryou was still stunned by his generosity. "A-Are you sure that I won't be in the way?" he asked with a blush, thinking about Duke's frequent habit of engaging in one-night stands.

"Of course you won't be in the way," Duke answered, but a moment later, he understood what Ryou had really meant. "Ah, I see. Well, actually, I have a funny story about that…" And he explained to Ryou that he was on an abstinence kick and why.

"Huh." Ryou looked thoughtful as he considered this new information. "How's that going so far?" he asked, smiling a little.

"Awful," Duke groaned, rolling his eyes as he flopped onto his back on the couch, making Ryou chuckle. "I didn't realize that it would feel like some kind of drug withdrawal."

Ryou laughed again, looking merry as he retorted, "You'll get used to it after a little while."

"How do you know?" Duke asked, continuing in a dramatic fashion. "I have _needs_ that must be satisfied."

Ryou started laughing again, and replied, "I'm sorry, Your Highness. The agony must be _unbearable_."

"I am entitled to my pleasure!" Duke declared, continuing with his facetious drama when he saw how much it made Ryou laugh. Soon, Duke was making Ryou laugh so hard that he was begging for mercy.

"I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard," Ryou admitted, his cheek still pink and his smile wide.

Duke smiled back at him and held out his hand, saying, "So, do we have a deal? You'll come to live with me so that you can afford professional help?"

"Deal," Ryou answered, shaking Duke's hand, feeling truly hopeful for the first time in too long.

Duke helped Ryou pack up his things over the course of that week, moving Ryou and his small collection of possessions into the extra bedroom in Duke's apartment. They finished moving him in that first day of September, which gave them the leisure of properly celebrating Ryou's birthday together.

* * *

Seto Kaiba was not crazy. No way was he crazy. He was too young to be going insane. Ghosts didn't exist, either. He definitely didn't believe in those, and the idea of ghosts could only have power over you if you believed in them. Which he didn't. Definitely not.

So why was he starting to hallucinate? He'd thought that he'd hallucinated in the past, but he'd grudgingly accepted the ancient Egyptian spirits and the Millennium Items as the causes of those visions. Now, though, he had _no_ explanation at all, and it was starting to mess with his head. He did some research on hallucinations, but he was left dissatisfied. Apparently, the only significant causes of hallucinations were the use of hallucinogenic drugs, experiencing withdrawal from those drugs, and intense exhaustion. He'd tried getting more sleep after that, but his sleep was too disturbed to be restful. Nightmares and night terrors plagued him, he began to feel like a helpless child too afraid of the darkness and what it brought. After a couple weeks of stubbornly attempting sleep, even using sleep aids, his hallucinations hadn't gotten any better.

He always saw the same thing every time: Gozaburo, standing there like a flesh-and-blood man, leaning against furniture, talking to him, and otherwise interacting with Seto's surroundings as if he were physical. He'd left behind footprints, turned off the lights, moved objects. He'd even spilled Seto's coffee once. None of it made any sense.

After a month of trying to get more sleep as a remedy and finding himself even more miserable than before, he turned to a different solution. He didn't want to go through proper channels to obtain prescription-strength medications, so he instead pursued over-the-counter antipsychotic drugs. Of course, he did research on them first, and ended up even more frustrated than ever. The possible side effects were too great a risk for him to take. Brain shrinkage? Delusional thinking? Weight gain? Muscle spasms? No thank you. No matter how slim the chances of those side effects may or may not be, he couldn't afford to take that risk.

"I told you that you would never be able to get rid of me." Seto looked up from his computer screen to see Gozaburo sitting on the edge of his desk, shrouded in shadows just as he should be, given that Seto had waited until after midnight to do this research. He couldn't take the risk of Mokuba seeing him do this.

"You're dead." Seto glared at the image of his step-father before pointedly turning his gaze back to the screen.

"Ignoring me doesn't make me go away." Gozaburo smirked and stood, walking closer to his step-son, which made him look up sharply.

"Don't you dare take another step." Seto fixed Gozaburo with a harsh glare. "Get out."

Gozaburo laughed at him. "Saying that never worked before, why do you think it'll work now?" he smirked again, and took another step closer to his step-son. Seto's breathing became shallow as a long-dormant feeling reawakened within him: fear. Pure, untainted terror. "You _should_ be afraid of me," Gozaburo growled as he stepped even closer, closer than he'd ever gotten before. Seto gulped as he felt an old, familiar tightening around his neck. He reached up to touch his neck, eyes still fixed on the unexpainable figure that stood only a few feet away from him. He didn't feel anything touching him, but he would swear that he felt the collar being put around his neck.

"You've tried to forget about me, haven't you?" the menace chuckled, watching the brunette's face transform into panic. As he stepped even closer to Seto's chair, the chair's occupant pushed away from the desk and stumbled away from the unwelcome visitor. He couldn't breathe, too tight…

"Stop," Seto snapped, trying to hide his fear. "Stop this now."

"You need to learn how to show your father some respect." The invisible grip on Seto's throat tightened, and he fell to his knees. No less than ten seconds later, his vision was filling with stars.

"Maybe if you begged me, I'd be willing to let you go," Gozaburo said thoughtfully. He felt absolutely nothing of the teen struggling for air several feet away.

"Never," Set choked out, starting to lose his grip on consciousness.

"Then suffer." Gozaburo watched coldly as Seto was strangled on the floor. Seto wouldn't have given in to the demand under normal circumstances, but even since his nightmares had started, he'd come to fear that darkness that flooded his consciousness from somewhere behind his eyes. He was afraid of being unaware, of losing consciousness and being subject to the torturous caprice of his own subconscious mind.

"Please, stop." He actually humbled himself to the point of begging as he dropped his hands to the floor as well, struggling to support himself as he grew increasingly unsteady.

"That's a good boy," Gozaburo praised in the cruelest, most condescending tone he possessed. The grip on Seto's neck eased, and he gasped for air as soon as it became available. The sensation of the collar around his neck, though, didn't leave. Gozaburo walked closer to Seto again, and the brunette wary of what else his step-father might do, started to get up off the floor.

"Get down!" Gozaburo snarled, and Seto dropped to the floor again, landing on his hands and knees as he began to choke back a sob. "You've been very _bad_ while I was gone, my boy."

Seto cowered, eyes fixed to the floor. What else could he do? No matter how much he told himself that this was just a hallucination, he couldn't remove the fear that the image and voice of his step-father inspired. It was visceral. It was something he'd been conditioned to feel during the years he had spent abused and suppressed under Gozaburo's heel. Gozaburo walked around Seto, moving behind him, where Seto couldn't see him. He squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that seeing wouldn't make any of this better.

"I'm going to punish you so that you can't forget about me ever again." He let his hand caress Seto's ass for a few moments before bringing his hand down in a hard spanking, making Seto cry out.

 _It shouldn't have hurt that badly,_ Seto thought to himself, blinking away the tears that had sprung to his eyes out of pain. Gozaburo's hands didn't leave his posterior, though, and Seto quickly began to feel sick.

"Please stop," Seto whimpered, feeling deeply violated. "Just… stop."

"Humph. Fine, since you begged so nicely," Gozaburo sneered, withdrawing his hands as Seto shrunk back in shame. "I will be back, though. When you least wish it." And just like that, he was gone, and Seto was starting to sob on the floor. Even his own hallucinations hated and hurt him.

He was so greatly tempted to break his promise to Mokuba, but he forced himself to manage without it. He couldn't stand the thought of disappointing his brother again and causing him more pain.

The last thing he wanted to do after that was sleep, because he knew his terror would follow him into his dreams, but he hadn't slept in three days and deep down beneath the caffeine induced alertness, he was drop-dead exhausted. He left his home office, skittish and dazed, and shoved off his clothes before curling up under the covers of his large bed. Despite his fear and his desire to stay awake, he still sank into sleep after a little while.

He woke up three hours later in a cold sweat, shivering as panic seized him in a temporary paralysis. He couldn't move, he could hardly breath, and that terrified him even more. The moment he regained control over his limbs, he threw back the covers and went to the shower, hoping that the shock of water would help him wake up fully and get control of himself. All of this was a nightmare, just one big nightmare.

 _Wake up, Seto. Wake up,_ he ordered himself as he leaned against the wall of the shower, feeling breathless. _It's just a trick of your mind. You weren't in pain. It was all just a trick. He's dead. He's not real. You don't feel pain._

* * *

 **Author Notes:** So, where do you think Gozaburo came from? Hallucination, ghost, delusion, Seto's personal demon pretending to be Gozaburo? Okay, that last one was a joke, but I'm curious to see what you think. PLEASE REVIEW! Reviews are to me what blood is to vampires and what brains are to zombies. Except I don't kill you for them. XD


	4. Strike

Seto had turned back to his Duel Monsters cards for comfort. Mokuba had smuggled them to his brother in hollowed out books way back when Seto was still being abused by Gozaburo, and they—with the emotional link they carried back to Mokuba—had given him hope and strength. Maybe they would give him hope and strength once again as he endured this second round of abuse from what he still believed to be a hallucination.

Whenever the mental and emotional pressure grew to be too much for him, he took out his brief case filled with rare cards and started shuffling through them in search for a new possible strategy. Not that he needed a new strategy, but the act itself helped put his mind at ease.

The physical pain was no longer an issue. His denial was strong enough that he could will the pain away. Physical pain was always far easier to handle than any other kind for that very reason: willpower was all he needed in order to deal with it. He'd learned that as a child.

 _Thanks, Gozaburo. That's one lesson of yours that I actually use._

* * *

Duke's difficulty in sticking to his sex-strike grew worse for a couple weeks before it started to get better. Once Ryou found a shrink that wouldn't argue with him or assume he was delusional when he said that he had been possessed by an ancient Egyptian spirit, he started attending weekly sessions. On his very first one, he'd asked about the sex-strike theory on his roommate's behalf.

"He said that it works best if you can do it for six or seven months," Ryou informed Duke that evening over Chinese take-out—they'd both been feeling too lazy to cook, which happened maybe once or twice a week.

"You're kidding, right?" Duke looked pathetic as he heard this news, as if Ryou had just told him that all the puppies and kittens in the world had died.

"No, I'm not kidding," he said gently, making Duke groan with frustration. "You don't have to do this, you know," he commented casually. "You chose this, after all."

"I know, but if I keep doing things the same way I've always done them, I'll always get the same result. I want something different."

It was rare that Ryou ever heard Duke speak so seriously and abstractly. It used to never happen at all, but since Ryou'd moved in and Duke had started his sex-strike, he'd grown more contemplative.

"Whatever it is you're looking for, I hope you find it," Ryou said sincerely before taking another bite of white rice.

Duke believed that he was already starting to find it, with Ryou: a genuine human connection. Until now, he'd sought that with sex. Now he understood what it was like without the sexual component.

He was learning how to be vulnerable and honest and accept other people for who they were. In the past, he rarely stayed with one person for more than one night simply because he knew that if there was even one thing about them that bothered him, he'd have a hard time dealing with it. He'd had various girlfriends and boyfriends over the years, but none of them had lasted more than a month because Duke would tire of them and grow restless, or get annoyed and irritated with them—or both.

Ryou was turning out to benefit Duke as much as Duke was benefiting Ryou.

* * *

"I've decided to limit the number of hours you're allowed to spend playing video games per day," Seto informed his brother. Gozaburo was gone for now, and while he was relieved by that, he was also on edge, anticipating his appearance at any given moment.

"That's not fair," Mokuba whined, starting to pout.

"Of course it's fair. You know what would be unfair? If I took away all of your videogames, but I'm not."

"What's the limit?" Mokuba asked suspiciously.

"Two hours a day."

"Two hours!" Mokuba's reaction was dramatic. "What am I supposed to do all the time, though?"

"You could read. That's what I did when I was your age," Seto said, unable to keep the pointedness out of his voice. He didn't look up from his laptop, but he could see in his peripheral vision that his words had stunned Mokuba into an uncomfortable silence. They both remembered how Gozaburo had taken all toys and games away from Seto, and he'd survived, more or less.

"All the books in the library are big and hard and dull," Mokuba complained with a frown.

"No they're not, and you can't possibly know that, because there are books in there that even I haven't touched." Seto took a moment to look up at his brother for a few moments, wondering if his enthusiastic complaining was some kind of cry for attention. "Do you want me to show you where the interesting books are?"

"Yes please," Mokuba mumbled after a few moments, uncrossing his arms as Seto stood from his desk chair and led his little brother to the large library he'd inherited. It was huge, like something out of a fairytale or a Disney movie, with multiple levels and rolling ladders attached to the shelves so that books far out of reach could still be accessed. He led Mokuba to the corner of the library that had helped Seto cope during those hard times. True, the books weren't the typical literary fare for a ten-year-old, but he didn't doubt Mokuba's ability to read and understand them.

Unlike Gozaburo, Seto had actually given thought to Mokuba's intellectual potential. After all, if Seto was a genius, who was to say that Mokuba wouldn't be his equal when he was fully grown? And also unlike Gozaburo, Seto refused to put his little brother through such an insanely rigorous education. He would let his brother have time to be a child, to do silly things and make mistakes and enjoy the vacations he had from school. He wouldn't let him be lazy, but he would let him be a kid. Mokuba had already skipped a grade at school, which put him at a slight social disadvantage, but at least he, unlike Seto, got to be around other children in middle school.

"Do you want to pick one out, or shall I?" he asked, looking down at his brother's raven hair.

"You can pick one out."

Seto knelt down and reached immediately for the volume of Shakespeare's Complete Works.

"That's huge!" Mokuba's eyes grew wide as he saw which book Seto was reaching for. "I can't read that whole thing!"

"Nonsense, of course you can." He handed the book to his kid brother, who wrapped both arms around it as he hugged it to his chest. "Besides, it's not just one story, it's multiple plays in one volume, so it's like carrying one book instead of thirty-eight." He stood up and was several steps away when Mokuba's voice stopped him.

"I don't know where to start."

He turned around, saw how lost Mokuba looked, and sighed, giving in to his better instincts as he walked over to the nearby leather couch. He sat down and patted the spot beside him, making Mokuba perk up and scamper over to join him. Seto opened the large book between them to the table of contents.

"We're going to ignore the scholarly essays included in this edition, although I do recommend that you go back and read them when you're in high school." Seto glanced over at Mokuba to make sure that he was paying attention before he continued, "There are the histories,—"

"Boring."

"—the comedies,—"

"Those aren't even funny."

"—and the tragedies."

"Isn't there anything else in here?" Mokuba asked, reluctant to engage in anything too difficult. He was still resentful of having his videogame time limited. He peered at the page and asked, "How about the sonnets? What are those?"

"Shakespeare wrote 157 sonnets. The word sonnet itself means 'little song,' but they're short poems, fourteen lines long—"

"Short? I like short. Let's do those."

Seto started to move the book off of his lap so that he could get back to work, but his brother grabbed his sleeve to stop him.

"Can you please read them with me?" Those big grey eyes were hard to say no to. Most of the time, Seto managed to do so, but, knowing that his brother was just trying to find a way to spend more time with him, he gave in. It had been a long time since he'd read Shakespeare's sonnets anyways. He turned the pages to the beginning of the sonnets as Mokuba settled himself comfortably beside Seto, eager to hear his brother read to him, not realizing that he'd be asked to explain it when his brother finished the poem.

 _"From fairest creatures we desire increase,/ That thereby beauty's rose might never die,/ But as the riper should by time decease,/ His tender heir might bear his memory..."_

Even in the poetry, though, Seto couldn't escape his step-father.

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Sorry that this chapter was so short. I wanted to fluff things up a bit to make up for the angst in the previous chapter.


	5. Fathers

"I've almost gained back the weight that I lost," Ryou informed Duke with a hesitant smile over breakfast one morning.

"Congratulations! I'm really glad to hear that."

Ryou beamed at him. Duke's praise for his roommate's little victories in the recovery process never failed to encourage Ryou and boost his mood. It was a good kind of weird to be around so much positivity on a daily basis, and he thought for not the first time that moving in with Duke was one of the best decisions he could have made.

"I'm going to bring some cream-puffs home from the bakery tonight to celebrate." Ryou took another bite of his toast.

"That sounds like a good idea, so long as you share them," Duke added with a wink.

"Of course I'll share them!" Ryou knew Duke was teasing, but he couldn't help but respond anyways. "When do your splints come off?" he asked, nodding towards Duke's left hand.

"I have another appointment next week, so hopefully then."

Ryou studied Duke's left hand for a few moments. Something about the injury had been bothering him for a while now.

"If your hand got slammed in a heavy door, then how come your pinky didn't get broken?" he asked curiously, making Duke freeze in the process of washing the frying pan.

"I didn't slam my hand in a door," he admitted with a long sigh. Before Ryou could ask him what did happen, he continued, "It's a long story, and you have to get going soon, so I'll just explain it to you tonight, okay?"

"Okay." Ryou was worried about him, but since he'd already agreed to tell Ryou the truth, he wasn't going to push the issue. He glanced down at his watch, then started in surprise. "Wow, you're right, I have to get going NOW." He jumped up from the counter and grabbed his hoodie, starting to pull it on. He was already leaving later than he should. How had the time gotten away from him? He should stay and take care of his own mess, but he was already running late… Duke sensed Ryou's inner conflict and laid it to rest for him.

"Go on, I'll take care of your breakfast dishes," Duke said, smiling at Ryou over his shoulder.

"Are you sure?" Ryou was hesitant to accept Duke's offer, feeling like he ought to clean up his own mess, but at the same time, he didn't want to be late, and thinking about being late made him anxious…

"I'm sure. I have time before I have to go downstairs. You should get going before you really _are_ late." Duke smiled again, reassuring the Brit and making him smile back, his worried expression relaxing a bit.

"Thanks, Duke. Have a good day!"

"You too!"

It was Tuesday, and Ryou didn't have classes today, so he worked from morning to evening and did his homework at night. He was working as many hours as he could while still keeping up with classes, but Duke was starting to worry that Ryou needed to back off on his working hours so that he could get adequate rest. True, Ryou had earned a full ride to the public college in Domino that already had a lower tuition rate for him because he was local, but public colleges weren't as good as private colleges, and didn't have quite as many perks. Other colleges might have free counseling services for their students, but this one didn't, leaving Ryou to pay for his own.

* * *

Seto continued reading Shakespeare's sonnets to Mokuba at a rate of maybe seven a day. He didn't just read them, though; he talked Mokuba through them, helping him to understand the abstract and poetic language. If he could get Mokuba to understand Shakespearean poetry, after all, then getting him to understand any other literature would be a breeze.

It took him some time to warm up, but Mokuba was doing really well with the reading. He often read them during the day before Seto came to him in the evening to work through them together so that he had some familiarity with them already. When Mokuba requested something easier for him to read during the day on his own, he gave his brother a complete anthology of Emily Dickinson's poetry and a copy of Edmund Spenser's _The Faerie Queene_ , since it read more like an archaic fairytale.

It was true that Seto wasn't really one for the poetic—he simply never made time for it since he had far too much to do. He did know, however, that fMRI brain scans had demonstrated incredible increase of activity when someone was reading classic poetry (like Shakespeare) as compared to the amount of activity generated by reading prose. Not only did he think Mokuba would enjoy the poetry more, but reading poetry was encouraging his brain development, so it was good for him too, which mattered very much to Kaiba.

* * *

"I'm really sorry to hear that," Ryou said softly, looked concerned as he sipped his green tea. Duke had just finished explaining how his fingers had really gotten broken. "Were you scared?"

Duke opened his mouth to lie, hesitated, then answered, "I was a little, once I realized that they wouldn't _just_ be holding me captive this time. And I guess… I was always kind of scared, because it's completely a matter of chance whether or not my dad can get together the money he owes and pay them back. He's not exactly what you would call dependable."

"I know what you mean," Ryou sympathized, staring down into his tea as he remembered his own father. His cellphone rang just then, and he picked it up to see who it was, scowling as he read the name. "Speak of the devil," he grumbled before silencing his phone and putting it on the coffee table. He tipped his head back as he drained the last of his tea.

"At least your dad is trying to talk to you, though," Duke pointed out gently. "Mine doesn't do that unless he needs money."

Ryou looked back at his phone, suddenly regretting that he hadn't answered the call. After years of pining for his father, didn't it make sense to welcome him back with open arms?

"I think you should call him back," Duke advised quietly. "At least see what he wants. What's the worst that can happen?"

"You're right," Ryou conceded with a sigh, picking up his phone again. He stood and went to his room to call his dad back, and while he was gone, Duke stood to wash their empty mugs.

When he was done with that, he was contemplating what they should do for dinner when he heard a voice from his flatmate's room.

"That's a terrible reason! I was hardly old enough to take care of myself!"

Duke winced. He never heard Ryou raise his voice like that. Ryou was usually gentle, forgiving, understanding. He never hated people, never stayed angry, never held a grudge. The only person he expressly hated was the Spirit of the Millennium Ring. The only people he couldn't forgive were the Spirit and his own father.

"Checks aren't enough! The least you could have done was _call_ every now and then to see how I was doing!"

Duke stood very still, feeling somewhat guilty for listening, but it wasn't like he was trying to eavesdrop.

"If I hadn't run into you in Egypt, would you have _ever_ talked to me again? Did you ever plan on _telling_ me that you had a new family? That you were even still _alive_?" Ryou's voice was taking on a new tone of anguish as he yelled at his father. Less than a minute later, he emerged from his room, looking like he was on the verge of tears. Duke straightened up, concerned for his friend, who didn't seem willing to offer any details of his conversation.

"Do you need a hug?" Duke asked softly. He hated seeing Ryou looking so crushed.

"Yes please." Ryou sniffled, and Duke came over to hug him tightly, putting one hand in Ryou's hair to cradle his head against Duke's shoulder while using his other to hold him close. Ryou's arms were wrapped tightly around the dice master as he tried his best not to cry. They stood in relative silence for several minutes, Duke more than willing to hold Ryou for as long as it took.

"You give good hugs."

* * *

 _"Is it thy will, thy image should keep open/ My heavy eyelids to the weary night?/ Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,/ While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?/ Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee/ So far from home into my deeds to pry,/ To find out shames and idle hours in me,/ The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?/ O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:/ It is my love that keeps mine eye awake:/ Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,/ To play the watchman ever for thy sake:/ For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,/ From me far off, with others all too near."_

It was a love poem about jealousy and separation and suspected infidelity, but what Seto saw was how Gozaburo would continue to spy on him from beyond the grave, jealous of any happiness his step-son might have found in his absence. Not that he was a ghost. Definitely not. Seto still believed his step-father to be a hallucination, and any pain the visage inflicted was just the somatization of some repressed memory. He was helping Mokuba decipher the first few lines, when he began to balk.

"This is too hard!" Mokuba pouted, his face all scrunched up with frustration. "It takes so long to understand just one of these. Can't we just read them and not bother talking about them?"

"What good would it do you to read them without knowing what they mean?"

"They sound pretty…"

"That's not enough."

"But they're so difficult!" Mokuba sighed and leaned against his brother's shoulder. "I feel like I'm not any good at them, anyways."

Seto chuckled at that. "You're better at understanding these than a lot of adults are, Mokuba."

"Really?" Mokuba was hopeful, but incredulous. It was a hard thing to believe, but he also knew that his brother wasn't the type to engage in idle flattery.

"Yes, really." He'd read somewhere that children's brains weren't developed enough to comprehend abstract logic and theoretical philosophy until they were twelve, and he couldn't help but wonder if that contributed to Mokuba's difficulty grasping the meaning of the words. Perhaps if he spoke in more concrete terms he could reduce the mental strain for the child.

After he completed a few more sonnets with his brother and put him to bed, Seto went back to his office to work, but Sonnet 61 was still circling in the back of his mind. In frustration, he pulled it up online and skimmed it again, hoping that by discerning which part of the poem was bothering him, he could put it out of his mind.

If he replaced the word "love" with "fear" and "hate" as appropriate, the poem seemed to perfectly describe his current situation: It wasn't because Gozaburo was so spiteful that his desire to torture his heir was being continued after his own death by his ghost, but Seto was so afraid of him that his own mind was conjuring up his image out of nothing but shadows and memories. If he could just overcome his fear, then that meant Gozaburo would leave him alone for good, right?

"Ha! You think I'm still just a delusion. That's cute, but I thought you were smarter than that."

Seto didn't need to look up to know who owned that voice, but he did anyways, pinning his step-father with a glare. "Get out," he ordered, looking back to his computer as he closed the browser tab that had the poem open.

"It's not that easy to get rid of me, Seto. When I said you would never be free of me, it was a promise."

"Do you really have nothing better to do with yourself than to taunt me?" Seto scoffed. "You're so pathetic that you feel like you have no meaning to your life aside from the power you hold and the pain you inflict."

"And the fear I inspire," Gozaburo added with a vile grin as he leaned forward over Seto's desk and pushed his laptop closed. "And right now, I'm absolutely high from how much you fear me." He grabbed his step-son by the hair and attempted to pull him close, as if to kiss him, but Seto's terror leant him strength and enabled him to shove the late Kaiba patriarch away, telling himself that his hair didn't hurt, he was just imagining it. Gozaburo, shocked by his heir's retaliation, stumbled and fell back onto the floor. Seto stood and glared daggers down at the man who'd made his life miserable for too long.

"You're going to leave me alone from now on, Gozaburo. I'm done with you and your nonsense. You're insane, and you should have fallen on your ass in hell long ago."

"Is that the best you have for me, Seto?" He laughed loudly, only confirming Seto's statement about his sanity. "Fine, then, I'll leave for now, but I'll still be watching you, unseen, and you'll never know if or when I'm there."

Those words haunted Seto for the next several days, during which he would feel his skin crawling at the thought of Gozaburo watching him when he showered or when he slept. Granted, he made it a habit not to sleep more than five hours a night (and he rarely accomplished even that), but still, he felt vulnerable during that time.

He had no power over this, no control, no understanding. That alone scared him even more than Gozaburo himself, prompting him to become paranoid. Mokuba noticed and expressed his concern, asking his brother to take a day off, but Seto refused. His work schedule hadn't changed since Gozaburo died: morning to night, seven days a week, no weekends, no holidays. He couldn't afford to take a day off, he had too much to do.

Mokuba then begged him to at least get a full night of sleep, even if he had to take sleeping pills, because he definitely needed it. Seto obliged, but when he woke up, he was still paranoid.

Mokuba, sensing that his brother wasn't much better off than he'd been the day before, suggested that Seto throw some kind of big party for his birthday. That would cheer him up for sure, he thought. Seto took his suggestion under consideration, not making any promises. He was, however, grudgingly tempted by the idea. He needed a release for the tension he'd pent up for so long, and he didn't have any better ideas.

* * *

 **Author Notes:** I'm sorry if the story feels really disjointed right now. I promise that'll change within the next few chapters. Please review if you enjoyed it!

Also, POETRY FOR THE WIN! ;D Everything attributed to Shakespeare is actually written by Shakespeare.


	6. Relationships

A scream woke Duke in the middle of the night, and he leapt out of bed to rush to Ryou's room, where his friend was sitting upright in bed, trembling horribly, his eyes wide with fear. Duke approached him gently, embracing his friend in an attempt to reassure him.

"Another night terror?" he murmured, and Ryou nodded, his breathing shallow. "Breathe, Ryou. You're safe here," Duke murmured, still holding Ryou as he focused on trying to breathe deeply and move past the sudden irrational panic that had flooded his system. He pressed into Duke as the entrepreneur rubbed his back soothingly, gradually regaining a degree of composure.

"Thank you, Duke," he murmured at last, lifting his head to smile at his best friend. His eyes were filled with gratitude, and Duke swallowed hard to keep himself calm as well.

"You're welcome. Anytime," he answered cheerfully, reluctantly leaving Ryou so that they could both go back to sleep.

Duke hadn't been attracted to Ryou before he'd moved in. Now that they'd spent a month living together, though, during which time Duke was supporting Ryou's efforts to recover and achieve some kind of normality, he found himself falling for the teen. Ryou's life had always been abnormal; he'd always felt like an outsider. Duke wanted him to know that he didn't have to be alone. Duke didn't know what to do with his feelings. He'd never felt like this about anybody else before, but then again, Ryou was different from everybody else. He was special, and not in the "special needs" kind of way. He had a rare, beautiful soul that made Duke soften on the inside. He did what he could to make him smile as much as possible, and his presence alone was enough to lift Duke's spirits.

And of course, Duke was also physically attracted to him, because Ryou's soul wasn't the only beautiful thing about him. He was uncertain of himself, though, because these feelings were so alien to him. He wanted to be sure that this was all genuine, so he planned on keeping his feelings to himself until after he ended his sex-strike, so that he could know with certainty that he was being real with himself. The last thing he wanted to do was break Ryou's heart, after all. That meant that, when the time came, he needed to break his strike with someone other than Ryou.

* * *

"In the past, you were afraid to get close to people because of the potential that the Soul-Stealer would harm them. But he is, as you've said, gone permanently. So what's stopping you now?"

Ryou tried to stay calm as he looked back at his therapist, thoughtfully putting together an answer in his mind before he spoke.

"I think… there's some part of me that feels like I don't know how to. I've been forced into isolation for so long, I'm just not sure show to form those kinds of attachments. And it bothers me, because I don't want to be alone forever, but I also don't want to be a bother or a burden. And… I don't really know many people, but I also don't really like meeting people."

"That makes sense given your social anxiety," the doctor replied thoughtfully. "It helps to enter social situations with a friend, though, with someone you can trust and with whom you can withdraw from the crowd if you need a break, but don't want to be alone. I think that you should try to attend some kind of event or visit a lounge or something of that nature within the next month with a friend and try to accustom yourself to the experience without feeling anxious. It's good to stretch our limits, because in doing so, we expand our comfort zones and become more adaptable."

"Okay, I'll try to do that," Ryou agreed, thinking that such a task sounded reasonable enough. "And if you do start feeling anxious or upset, you can always use the breathing exercises I taught you, alright?"

"Alright." Ryou nodded, reminding himself that he didn't need to feel anxious about going to a party or crowded event if he had a friend with him, especially if it was Duke.

"Now, with regard to interpersonal relationships, do you think that you have commitment issues, or is it something else?" He sat back in his chair, looking thoughtful as he waited for Ryou's answer.

"No, it's not a commitment issue… Quite the opposite, actually. I'm mostly afraid that people are never going to stick around. I haven't had any long-term relationships of any kind with anyone—except the Spirit of the Ring, and that was hardly beneficial."

"What about your parents?"

"My mother and sister died in a car accident when I was very young," the teen answered softly, looking away for a moment. "When I was twelve, my father left for an archaeological dig and never came back, and I ran into him again in Egypt last year, but only briefly."

"It seems like you're afraid of abandonment, then." His tone was questioning, as if he sought confirmation from his patient.

"Yes: I don't want to invest in a relationship only to have someone turn around and forget about me. I don't want to place my trust in someone to just have them leave. I fear that I won't matter as much to the people that mean a lot to me."

"That's very interesting. Well, I'm afraid we're out of time, but I would like us to pick up with that next week."

* * *

"So, the ghost is real?" Mokuba asked, looking to his brother for clarification. They'd finished the sonnets yesterday and Seto had decided to start reading Hamlet to his little brother. Mokuba found it as challenging as it was entertaining. That is, it was entertaining to him to hear his brother reading multiple parts of a play, but the text itself was difficult to unravel.

"Yes, this ghost is real, within the world of the story," Seto answered, qualifying the statement so that his brother didn't get the wrong idea.

" _This_ ghost? Is there another ghost in the story that's not real?" Mokuba's quick mind easily latched onto the potential behind Seto's words.

"That's debatable, but that's a long way off."

"So, let me get this straight: Hamlet's mom marries her dead husband's brother less than a month after he's dead?"

"Yep."

"That's gross!" Mokuba's face crinkled with disgust, and Seto hmph'd in amusement.

"Yes it is, so don't do anything like that, okay?"

"Never!" Mokuba took a moment to rid himself of the notion. "And Hamlet and Horatio are going with the other two guys to see if the ghost is there the next night too?"

"That's right."

He was silent for a few moments before he asked, "Why isn't Hamlet scared of the ghost?"

"He is scared, especially because he doesn't know for sure if it's his father or not, but he realizes that finding the truth is more important than letting himself stay scared."

"Would _you_ face a ghost on purpose if you thought it might be a demon?" Mokuba asked out of pure curiosity. He didn't know it, but he was getting very close to the heart of his brother's current problem: just as Hamlet was confronted with the ghost of his father, so Seto was confronted with the ghost of his step-father.

"Ghosts aren't real, so there's no chance of that ever happening," Seto retorted, clearly disdainful of the suggestion of him being intimidated by something fictional.

"But what about the Millennium Puzzle and—"

"Mokuba." Seto gave his brother a look that warned him he was going too far.

The younger Kaiba sighed, knowing better than to push his brother any further about those events. Mokuba had tried asking his brother about the Millennium Items before, but he always got shut down. He'd asked numerous other people—his gym coach, his classmates, the occasional maid at the mansion, Roland—about the existence of ghosts and the supernatural, and he had yet to receive an answer that fully satisfied him.

"What have I told you about spirits?" Seto asked sternly.

"That they're not real, and only people who believe in them can see them because of the power of suggestion," Mokuba recited faithfully, if half-heartedly.

"That's right, so you don't have to ask about them again." Spirits and ghosts disrupted Seto's understanding of the world around him, and challenging that worldview was too upsetting a thing for him to handle, especially right now, so he denied them entirely.

"Okay." Mokuba sighed, looking a little glum, and Seto rumpled his hair, leaning forward to give his forehead a quick peck as he felt guilty for upsetting the child.

"Sleep well." He tucked the bookmark into the Shakespeare volume and set it on Mokuba's nightstand as he stood.

"You too!" his brother called as Seto left the room and paused in the doorway to turn out the light. "Goodnight, Seto."

"Goodnight, Mokuba." Seto closed the door behind him and turned to go back to his office for a few more hours of work.

"You still choose to deny me, Seto?" Gozaburo asked, leaning against the wall as Seto passed him nonchalantly.

"You're nothing but a hallucination induced by stress and a cumulative lack of sleep. There's nothing to deny." A chill ran down the brunette's spine as the sound of Gozaburo's footsteps and laughter followed him to his office. _What is he going to do to me this time?_

After an hour of heckling and intimidation and abuse, Seto was fed up. He yelled at his step-father until he went away, then went to his own room. He wasn't quite ready to sleep yet, but he needed a distraction, and since his nightly reading with Mokuba had put him in the mindset for Shakespeare, he decided to put on a movie, Joss Whedon's take on Shakespeare's _Much Ado About Nothing._ He only let half his mind pay attention to it, and by the end of it, he felt worse than he had before.

Love. Was such a thing really so strong as to make people act like that? True, he'd gone to extreme lengths because he loved Mokuba, but that was different. There were very real obligations that he had to the child besides his feelings. Whereas, if the characters had just been rational about things, there wouldn't have been so much drama and distress between them. Then again, the only purely rational character had been the villain, the duke's brother.

That raised a question in the billionaire's mind, one that unsettled him: If pure reason led one to unethical actions, did that mean that emotions played a vital in decision-making and executive function? If so, how did you know what emotions to listen to, which ones were good and which ones were bad? Was emotional really such a key part of the human experience? Since he'd done his best to suppress his own emotions, did that make him less than human? Was he really keeping himself safe by abstaining from all romantic attraction, as he believed, or was he missing out on something truly wonderful?

He felt shaken to his very core, and decided to escape the sense of metaphysical disorientation in sleep.

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Joss Whedon's _Much Ado About Nothing_ (2013) is an excellent movie; I highly recommend it.

Please review if you enjoyed this chapter, because positive reviews directly fuel my writing speed!


	7. Adjust

"So… what was it like, having the Millennium Ring?" Duke asked casually over breakfast one Sunday morning. Neither of them were in a rush to go anywhere, and it was nice to just enjoy the morning. "If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine," he added, to put Ryou's mind at ease. "I was just curious."

"It was… strange, that's for sure," Ryou answered slowly. He picked at his scrambled eggs with his fork as he thought carefully before speaking again. "Painful, sometimes. Physically, I mean." he held up his left hand to show Duke the star-shaped scar that marred both the front and the back of his non-dominant hand.

"I always wondered how that happened." Duke studied the scar with interest.

"Do you know the Monster World game? It's a tabletop RPG, not as popular as it used to be, or as popular as Duel Monsters, but it's been around for a while."

"Yeah. My store's one of the few in Domino to carry its merchandise."

"The first time Bakura tried to hurt Yugi and his friends, it was through a Monster World game. It was kind of… complicated." Ryou began to explain about how Bakura had played against Yami, because all of his friends' souls had been transferred to their lead figures. Bakura himself was linked to Zorc, the final boss of the story that Ryou himself had written and that Bakura had used against his friends.

"And when Tristan chopped off Zorc's left hand, I regained control of my own left hand," Ryou explained. "Bakura didn't realize this at first, so I did what I could to help them out by hiding his mind-dice, altering the probability stats on the PC, stuff like that. When I caused him to fumble by throwing the mind-dice and rolling a 99, he realized what had been happening and impaled my hand on one of the turrets of Castle Zorc to stop me from interfering." Ryou smiled a little and added, "It didn't really work. Yugi was able to use his powers as the beast-tamer to separate my White Mage from Zorc. He was a much higher level than anyone else and allowed us to destroy Zorc. I was him, but I also wasn't. I don't know how better to explain it. There was a piece of me in him, which was enough to save me when I… I had to put my soul into Bakura's soul-dice for the final roll to ensure the outcome. The dice shattered, Bakura lost, and I… kind of died for a few minutes there." His eyes became glassy as he went still and silent, only stirring once Duke placed a reassuring hand on his arm.

"What happened next?" he asked softly, a small smile gracing his features as he said, "You can't just stop at the best part, you know."

That surprised Ryou into a light laugh, and he continued, "My White Mage sacrificed himself to bring me back to life. And for a while, he was gone and I was free." He looked wistful as he recalled that brief period in his life.

"That's incredible." Duke was genuinely impressed, feeling like, even though he believed in his friend and his courage and his strength, he'd underestimated Ryou all along. Ryou was braver than he could imagine anyone being.

"Ah, well, it didn't last for long, as you well know," Ryou continued ruefully, taking another bite of his toast.

"What about the Shadow Magic?" Duke asked then, intrigued. "I know Yami, Pegasus, and Marik were able to manipulate it because they had Millennium Items, but what about you?"

"I never liked the idea of using Shadow Magic," Ryou answered quietly, looking troubled. "Bakura used it to do such horrible things, I had a hard time imagining it being useful for anything good. Some things I didn't get to choose, though."

"What do you mean?" Duke found his flatmate's remark puzzling.

"The Millennium Ring allowed me to see ghosts." He'd hesitated before speaking, as if he was afraid that Duke wouldn't believe him. Duke did, though: after everything he'd witnessed in Battle City and beyond, he believed him without question. Besides, the Monster World fiasco was less believable than being able to see ghosts, and Duke believed that.

"What's that like?" Duke asked in quiet awe.

"Well, most of them are fairly apathetic things floating around in limbo," Ryou answered casually.

"Limbo? What's that?"

Ryou thought hard for a moment to come up with a decent explanation. "For the ancient Greeks, the spirits of people whose bones weren't buried couldn't find peace in the afterlife and would wander along the banks of the River Styx until their bones were buried, at which point they were permitted to cross and find their final resting place. John Milton, in Paradise Lost, described limbo as a place where the souls of infants went, because they were too young to make any sort of conscious decisions of their own when they died." That was a sad thought, and one that Ryou didn't subscribe to; he couldn't believe that infants _didn't_ go to heaven. "In Dante's Inferno, limbo is the outermost ring, the very first layer, of hell, where 'virtuous pagans' reside: people who didn't believe the right things but were still good people." He ate another bite as Duke sat in stunned silence. "Those are typically the kinds of ghosts that I see, and they don't bother me much. Sometimes the lonely ones will talk to me, but I don't mind that. I'm just glad that I can help make them feel better. I wouldn't go to graveyards, though, because there were just too many loose spirits around. They can't do you any harm, for the most part—unless you're like me and you can see them."

"You can still see ghosts?" That was a surprise.

"Yes, but it's only a residual power," Ryou admitted. "I probably won't be able to do so for much longer. I haven't been able to see the spirits in limbo for a few months now, and the others are starting to fade."

"Others? What _others_ are there?"

"The ones with 'unfinished business,' which are actually quite uncommon," Ryou answered calmly, sending a chill down Duke's spine. "The malicious ones who haunt a certain place or item, or even a person. Their purpose gives them power, and that makes them dangerous. They only show themselves to people they wish to show themselves to—unless you're like me, in which case you can't help but see them no matter what they do. I've had to deal with a few of them in my time, and if you're careful, they're not too hard to handle. It takes a lot out of you, but I haven't encountered a revenant that I couldn't banish."

"You've exorcised ghosts?"

Ryou looked up and finally took notice of Duke's shock. He smiled a little in mild amusement.

"I never thought to call it exorcism before, but yes, I suppose so."

"What _did_ you call it?"

"I was simply cleansing a spirit and helping it to move on to the hereafter."

"You're way too casual about this."

"I've been seeing ghosts for years now. It's something you just get used to." Ryou shrugged before eating the last bite of his toast.

"That's really cool that you're a medium," Duke mused, standing to carry his dishes to the sink. "So, do any movies portray ghosts or exorcism accurately, or are they all nonsense?"

"I wouldn't know. I don't watch those kinds of movies, especially not horror movies." Ryou visibly shuddered as he held his tea mug with both hands. "My own life was enough horror for me."

Duke glanced back at Ryou over his shoulder. "I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have asked about it at all. I didn't mean to upset you."

"No, no, it's okay," Ryou assured, forcing his eyes to focus on Duke so that he could offer him a smile. "It feels kind of good to talk to someone about it. I never even told Yugi that I was seeing ghosts. I didn't really want to draw attention to myself anymore than I already was." He paused for a moment. "You know, whenever Yugi was dueling, I could see both him and the pharaoh. I'm sure they thought nobody could see when their spirits would separate so they could talk to each other during a duel, but I could. I could hear them too." A secretive smile illuminated his features then as Duke looked back at him in shock.

"You spied on their thoughts?"

"It's not like I could choose _not_ to," Ryou defended with a defiant tilt of his chin, not really feeling bad about it. "It was interesting enough that it almost made up for all of the time that was stolen from me." It was also informative enough that Bakura could take advantage of the things he heard in his enemies' thoughts, but he didn't like to think about that.

As Duke washed his dishes, he was starting to feel like they should change the subject. He was glad that Ryou could speak about it all so calmly and without getting upset, but at the same time, he didn't want to draw it out and take the risk that.

"So, did you see the game last night?" he asked casually, turning the water off and drying his hands with a towel as he turned around to grin at a miffed Ryou.

"Duke, you know me," he answered coolly through pursed lips, his chocolate eyes dancing with amusement as he lifted both eyebrows at his companion. "I don't do sports."

* * *

"Mr. Kaiba, sir?"

Seto looked up from his laptop at the maid who'd disrupted his work. It was Saturday morning, so he was working from home, as his brother had requested he do long ago on the weekends.

"What is it?" he demanded, clearly displeased at being disturbed.

"My apologies, sir," she said nervously as she bowed to her employer. "Your brother was asking that we requisition as many mattresses and couch cushions from around the mansion as possible, and I thought it best to clear his request with you first, sir."

Seto looked simultaneously confused and irritated. "He asked you to _what_? Where is he?"

"In the entertainment center, sir," she answered promptly as Kaiba stood and strode out of his office to figure out what his brother was trying to do.

"What do you need the couch cushions and mattresses for?" He spoke as soon as he entered the room, but as he looked around, he started to understand why.

"I'm building a pillow fort!" Mokuba exclaimed from where he stood in the large space that had been cleared in the center of the room. "But not just any pillow fort, it's going to be a castle. It'll be epic!" He grinned, looking very pleased with himself. Seto still looked dubious and grouchy, so Mokuba continued, "I even have blueprints. See?" He carried the pieces of paper over to his brother so he could see them for himself, holding his breath as his brother perused them with a critical eye.

Seto found himself impressed with his brother's innovation, although he didn't say so right away. Certainly, this endeavor was just proof of the fact that he'd been right in limiting Mokuba's videogame time, since it allowed him to use his mind to come up with something like this. He knelt down and lay the blueprints—which were fairly decent considering the age of their creator—on the floor, pulling a pen out of his pocket as Mokuba knelt with him.

"The design is good, but not stable, given your available materials. It's so large that it won't be able to bear its own weight. If you remove this part here,"—he made the appropriate alterations on one drawing—"use the walls as props for these two sides, and substitute sheets for the covering instead, you can make it more viable _and_ more efficient."

"Cool, thanks bro!" Mokuba pulled out a clean sheet of paper and began to redraw the design, incorporating his brother's input.

The brunette stood and turned to the maid. "You can use materials from supply closets and the extra rooms in this wing, but not from the library, parlor, and any part of the house that will be open for the party next week." She nodded, looking relieved that this matter had been peacefully resolved.

"Can I leave it up for a while, Seto?" Mokuba asked as his brother started to leave the room.

"Sure, just don't try to take it down yourself when the time comes," he answered as he paused in the doorway. "I don't want anything falling on you, so be sure to ask for help."

"Okay! Come on, Roland, let's get started!"

Seto allowed himself a small smile of amusement as he watched his little brother interacting with his head of security for a few moments before he turned and left. Roland was an irreplaceable member of his staff: patient enough to put up with the caprice and nonsense of a young child and the short-tempered moodiness of his older brother. Besides, he was discreet, dependable, efficient, effective, and stubbornly loyal. The last was a trait that, for Roland, couldn't be bought. His loyalty was absolute and based on principle, and that was perhaps the trait that Kaiba valued most in him, because that made him someone that he could always trust, no matter what. Seto didn't have many people like that in his life.

"You should be more strict with him."

Seto didn't need to turn around to know whose voice that was.

"I never let you waste your time like that, and look how well you turned out." There was a smug smirk in his voice that Seto didn't need to see. He could hear it well enough. He paused with his hand on the door to his office, glancing up at Gozaburo for just a moment to address him.

"I didn't turn out well. I'm a mess." It was incredibly humbling to be forced to admit those words aloud. The only thing that enabled him to say them was the fact that it was for the purpose of proving Gozaburo wrong. "He's not wasting his time, he's _playing_."

"He should be working," Gozaburo contradicted immediately, arms crossed as he glared at his heir.

"He's just a child!" Seto snapped, shoving open the door to his office and slamming it shut behind him, not caring who heard the reverberating echo of it. He let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding and leaned back against the door, closing his eyes as he covered half his face with one hand. A deep pain was welling up within him, a pain that he didn't understand.

"He's just a child..." he choked out in a quieter, softer voice.

He wasn't just talking about Mokuba.

* * *

"Did you hear about Kaiba's birthday party this weekend?" Duke asked one evening as Ryou frowned at a thick textbook. At the moment, Duke had a rubber band positioned near his fingertips on his left hand, stretching and strengthening his fingers by stretching the rubber band repeatedly. Now that the splint was off, he only needed minor physical therapy to ensure that his hand returned to its former capabilities. Even so, if he didn't do the exercises the doctor had shown him, his hand could become nearly useless, so he was careful to do exactly what they told him to as often as necessary. He couldn't stand the thought of losing any degree of functionality.

"I'd heard of it," Ryou answered absentmindedly, still glaring at the textbook while he tried to complete the reading for his anthropology class tomorrow. "What about it?"

"Want to go?"

Ryou looked up at Duke's mischievous grin, feeling hesitant. "Are we invited?" he asked dubiously.

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Duke's eyes glinted with a sort of puckish delight.

"I don't think I even want to know what that means," Ryou sighed with a disapproving shake of his head. "Are we actually invited, or did you have to twist some words to make that claim?"

"Hey now, I'm not that bad!" Duke laughed, Ryou's comment sliding right off of him. He was just joking anyways; Duke knew that. "We're actually invited, just not by name. We're included in the category of 'tournament duelists.'"

"Wait, 'we'?" Ryou repeated, lifting an eyebrow at Duke. "You didn't compete in Battle City or in the KC World Championship."

"I competed in the Battle City bonus round," he joked cockily.

"The—what?!" Ryou blinked at him, absolutely perplexed. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"When we were on our way to the island with the Duel Tower, we got sucked into the Virtual World and Kaiba's step-brother was trying to—oh, right, you weren't there." Duke grinned sheepishly. "Well, I'll be your plus one," he said with a wink.

Ryou bit his lip as he tried to decide if he wanted to go. His therapist _had_ told him to attend a social function, and it was either this or attend Yugi's Halloween party… and Ryou hated Halloween parties. He hated Halloween in general, really, mostly because Bakura had been rather enthusiastic in his enjoyment of the macabre holiday.

"Okay, we can go," he said with a sigh. "I'm not sure if I have anything appropriate to wear to it, though," he grumbled as a blush stained his porcelain cheeks.

"Leave that to me," was Duke's only response as he grinned to himself. This was going to be fun.


	8. Memories

**Author Notes:** This picks up from where Seto's story left off in the previous chapter. Hopefully this fills in some holes for you. Please review if you like it, because _**more reviews = more chapters!**_

* * *

"He's just a child…"

Seto closed his eyes, breathing hard. He tried to force his body into a state of calm. It should be easy, since he'd had to develop excellent control of his body's reactions in the course of his life, but it was too difficult this time. Gozaburo had gone too far.

He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. They were shaking, and he couldn't make them stop. This was too much for him to handle on his own. He straightened up and opened the door to his office, stepping into the hallway again. He noticed with an acute sense of relief that Gozaburo was nowhere to be seen. He walked quickly to his room, hoping that Gozaburo didn't show up to bother him again. Even when he got there, he was still shaking. Only one thing left to do.

He went to his nightstand, and yanked open the top drawer. He pulled a pill bottle out of the back of the drawer and shook a few capsules into his hand. After a moment's contemplation, he put all but two of them back in the bottle and dry swallowed the remaining two. He sighed and dropped onto his bed, laying down comfortably as he closed his eyes and waited for the drug to take effect.

Drug. Such a funny word. It applied to substances as benign as melatonin and acetominophen as well as substances as harmful as heroine and cocaine. It tended to have a negative connotation, and if you wanted to talk about drugs in a nice way, you used the word medicine, but a drug by any other name is still a drug.

He could feel his pulse starting to slow down, his heartbeat going down to a more normal rate. He was familiar with the effects of this drug; he'd depended on it for emergencies like this for a few years now. He would start to feel drowsy. His brain would get clouded and he wouldn't be able to think analytically or clearly. It was pointless to go back to his office now.

He started to feel detached, like he was hovering outside himself. Tranquility stilled him, emotions ceased to bother him. It was only at times like this that he could even begin to contemplate his past without any sort of pain or anguish. His memories weren't extraordinarily clear this way, but that was all for the best.

Since he could recall the shadows of his past without such ill effects, he did so now.

His earliest memories were foggy: his parents smiling, Mokuba as an infant, his mother's grave, his father grieving. It was all compressed, too compressed for him to draw out many details at all. A few uneventful years alone with their father, then he died and they went to the orphanage.

The orphanage: the first of two hells he and Mokuba had endured. He still remembered their first day there when he'd tried to give Mokuba a pep-talk: _"Come on, no crying. Tears aren't gonna help us now. There's only one way you and I are gonna get through all this. We've got to get tough. Emotions will only get in the way of our survival. Don't expect anyone else to help us ever again. You and I are on our own now." (1)_ The adults didn't care about them anymore than they cared about the other orphans, so they could only depend on each other. It was them against the world.

Seto became a lot tougher than his brother, and good thing too, because Mokuba had been about as tough as a fluffy kitten at that age. Kids Seto's age bullied Mokuba, and the young teens had bullied Seto, so he'd had to look out for both of them. He'd gotten into a lot of fights their first few months there, and Mokuba had hated every bruise and scratch that his brother bore like battlescars.

Normally, that would have hurt a child's chances at adoption, but not for him. He was a genius. Plenty of nice couples (and even some not-so-nice couples) had wanted to adopt him. Some thought that he'd be easier to handle because he was so smart, and some thought that his intellect could be exploited for their own gain. Whenever he'd been led into an interview with potential adopters, he always told them the same thing: "If you want to adopt me, you have to adopt my little brother too." Both or neither. That was the ultimatum he gave them every time. It was the only reason they didn't get separated.

When the summer came and school let out, Seto figured out how avoid to the bullies, even though Moki didn't really like it. They would lock themselves in a room to play chess and read all day. Only Seto could read then, so he'd read books aloud to his little brother. He'd read a lot of old, musty books to him: _Treasure Island_ , Homer's _Odyssey_ , _The Great Gatsby_ , _The Canterbury Tales_ , and dozens of others. It kept the younger child entertained, even if he didn't understand them. Mokuba probably didn't remember any of that now, though. He'd been far too young at the time to be able to recall it.

They'd been at the orphanage for almost a year when Gozaburo visited. He skipped past his memories of that chess game. He'd already analyzed every move they'd both made and every word they'd said during that game. He'd analyzed all of it dozens of times now, but why he did, he didn't know. It was like he was trying to find some kind of answer, but he didn't know the question he was asking.

He'd had no idea what he was getting him and his brother into at the time. If he had the chance to go back and change history, he couldn't say for sure that he would do the same thing over again. He was just glad that he would never have to make up his mind about such a thing.

Their first day in Gozaburo's household had been their first day in a new kind of hell. The lessons began that very day, and continued every day after that for the next several years. That first day, Seto was wiped out. After starving for mental stimulation in the orphanage and public school, he felt like he'd been force-fed so much information that he would burst. That was the first time he'd ever suffered from a stress head-ache. Within the week, he'd endured his first beating at the hands of his step-father in addition to suffering intense lack of sleep. The end of that first week was when Gozaburo took away all of his games and his free time on the weekends. Nothing but work, eat, and sleep for the child prodigy.

That first beating stuck out in his mind with crystal clarity. He'd been so confused. What had he done wrong? Why was he being worked so hard? Why wasn't he allowed to sleep as much as he needed to? Why was he being collared and chained to a desk? How were his accomplishments insufficient when he'd done far more than the average child his age could do? Gozaburo had never hit his face, and Seto knew why. It was too obvious. It would betray his abusive nature and lose him his heir.

Seto hardly got to see Mokuba anymore, except for meals. Mokuba, frightened and alone in this big empty house, had sought his brother's presence at night as a comfort. Seto had obliged his little brother, visiting him at night to sleep with him as often as he could, even if it meant shorting himself some of his already scant sleep. Their step-father would get angry whenever he found them together, but that only made Seto certain that it was the right thing to do.

Molest. That was another nasty word. The molesting had started with the first beating, and it didn't stop until the beatings did: that is, they didn't stop until he died. A few months after they'd been adopted, all of it was starting to get to him and he'd tried to fight back. Big mistake. That was when Gozaburo had broken his right wrist, forcing him to become ambidextrous without lightening his workload at all. Not too long after that, maybe a month after he'd turned eleven, was when he'd started cutting.

It was all too much for him to handle. The pain, the threats, the shouting, the degradation, the creepy touching, the fear, the exhaustion. Not long after he wrist was broken—he told Mokuba he'd fallen down the stairs and landed on it—he cut for the first time. He couldn't remember where or how he'd gotten the idea in the first place, but his younger self had been suffering to such a degree that any sort of release for the anguish he felt was welcomed. Nothing else had worked, so he'd given cutting a try. This was when he was just starting to get comfortable using his left hand, so he'd started by grazing his thighs with some scissors. Those cuts had been light enough that he had no scars from them now. When the cast was off, he'd moved to his arms and wrists. It had become a project for him. Something of his own that he could focus on when Gozaburo got furious with him or when he'd been put through those tedious deportment lessons.

If Mokuba hadn't started smuggling Duel Monsters cards to him, he would have given up hope. He might have tried to run away. He might have tried to kill himself. It was anybody's guess what he _might_ have done, but Seto didn't like to think about the possibilities. He simply recalled Mokuba as his savior and left it at that.

Three years. Had he really only lived with Gozaburo for three years before overthrowing him? Yes, that was correct. Only three years, but it had felt like an eternity. He remembered watching Gozaburo jump out the window. He remembered Mokuba's shock as the glass shattered, and he remembered pulling his brother close to protect him from the shards and the screams. Everyone around them had lurched into action, but Seto and Mokuba had stood there in their own little bubble, frozen and silent. He couldn't bring himself to feel anything in those moments, except relief.

But he didn't stop cutting after that, because at the time, he'd been anxiously haunted by an imagined sense of Gozaburo's presence. He didn't feel it at KaibaCorp HQ, but in the mansion, he'd felt like he could hear those footsteps behind him wherever he went. He could still hear Gozaburo's disapproval and scorn at everything he did. That was when he'd started to push himself towards becoming the Duel Monsters champion. He achieved the title at sixteen, and that was when he finally started to put Gozaburo's influence behind him. Soon after turning seventeen, he finally forced himself to quit cutting. He could focus on work and his little brother without feeling like his step-father was breathing down his neck. But at eighteen, his title had been stolen from him by that short challenger: Yugi Moto. That was when he'd started to hate himself. After losing the Battle City tournament, he'd relapsed badly. Mokuba had struggled to coax his brother out of his depression, failing to understand why it mattered so much to him that he'd lost.

 _"Why don't you smile anymore? I know our childhood wasn't the best, but at least we had fun sometimes. And now you're always in a bad mood and I want it back the way it was!" (2)_

His brother hadn't known about his cutting. He'd never known, and he never would, if Seto could help it. He didn't want Mokuba to pity him for what he'd endured at Gozaburo's hands. Those days were over, so he didn't need to know. The innocence and happiness he'd once possessed were long gone. Things could never be the same as they'd once been. He'd done his best to apologize to his brother, but it was a hard thing to do when Gozaburo had drilled into his head the idea that apologizing is a sign of weakness.

 _"The past is over, and I may not be proud of every decision I made, but everything I did, I did for us, so we'd have a better life. Now let's move ahead, and don't look back." (3)_

He'd learned from Gozaburo to always hide your wounds. That was one lesson he'd never forget, even if he hadn't wanted to learn it. Gozaburo had probably expected Seto to break under the pressure. He hadn't. He'd survived, but at what cost?

That was the question that burned into Seto's brain now. Had it all been worth it? Had the abuse, the shame, the self-harm, the depression, the paranoia, the hallucinations—were they all worth the security that he had now and the guardianship he firmly held over his little brother? When he put it that way, he had to say yes. When he was eleven, he'd been abused and taken up self-harm as a way of dealing with the pain. The fact that Mokuba, now at that same age, was a happy, creative kid who got to play video games and build pillow forts and never have to worry about a thing justified that sacrifice.

This assessment, of course, excluded the several times Mokuba had been kidnapped, which Seto didn't like to think about at all, so he would continue to avoid any mention of those times. He'd made sure that Mokuba had no lasting effects or trauma from the incidents, so he'd done his post facto duty by him.

In spite of everything, Mokuba was a good kid: he was upbeat, confident, kind, smart. He was well liked when people judged him for himself, instead of who his brother was. Seto preferred that Mokuba turn out like this instead of a rebellious, moody foster child—surely that's what would have happened to him if he'd been put in the system.

Gozaburo was wrong. Mokuba had turned out just fine, and Seto would continue to allow Mokuba to grow up the way he had been. The last thing he needed was to change his parenting methods to mimic his step-father's.

"Seto?"

The man in question opened one sleepy eye to see his brother standing in the doorway to his room.

"What is it?"

The child hesitated.

"Are you taking a nap?"

"…Yes."

"I thought you looked tired."

Mokuba closed the door as he entered the room, crossing the floor to crawl up onto Seto's bed.

"Can I join you?"

"Sure."

Mokuba curled up into his brother's side, and Seto curled an arm around him while he removed his tie and undid the top few buttons of his shirt. With his guardian angel at his side, Seto drifted into a restful sleep.

* * *

(1) Seto, Season 3, Episode 3

(2) Mokuba, Season 3, Episode 40

(3) Seto, Season 3, Episode 4


	9. Ghosts

Ryou wandered into an emptier section of the Kaiba mansion, wanting some air so that he could breathe more easily. The party simply had too many people in too little space for him to feel comfortable. He just needed to find a place where he could be alone until his heart stopped pounding like a runaway train. At least he could tell his therapist that he'd tried. He'd tried, and that was what mattered.

He slipped along the halls like a shadow, trying to find a place he could rest for a bit without being nosy and poking his head into every room. Finally, he found a tall set of intriguing double doors, one of them slightly ajar. He tiptoed up to them and peeked inside. A library. He could hide there for now, then track down Duke later when it was time to leave. He slipped inside and gasped at what he saw. This library easily contained thousands, if not tens of thousands, of books. Yes, he could be comfortable here.

He spotted a plush, wingback chair facing the dormant fireplace and crept over to it as he contemplated the surprising quantity of ghosts wandering around the Kaiba mansion. He wondered if it should worry him. It was so close to Halloween that the apathetic little wraiths he usually ignored appeared more clearly to him. As he curled up in the cozy chair, he could feel their presence, see them approaching him with caution and concern from all corners of the room.

"It's alright, you can come out." He called softly to them, encouraging them to approach him since he had nothing better to do than talk to them. Besides, he'd never seen so many distressed ghosts in one place. Surely they must wish to tell him something if they looked that worried. Whatever they had to say, he would listen with an open mind.

One ghost came right up to him, the spirit of a little girl. Judging by her clothes, she looked like she'd been dead for two hundred years or so.

"Hello there," he greeted warmly as the other spirits congregated around him more slowly. "My name is Ryou."

"My name is Samantha," she said hesitantly, looking nervous. "I've been like this an awful long time, sir."

"You wish to pass over," he observed understandingly. "I can help with that if you wish." He reached under his silvery dress shirt and pulled out the rosary he always wore now that the Millennium Ring was gone. It had been his mother's. He wrapped his hand around the crucifix, knowing that for some reason or other, there was a positive spiritual energy imbued within, an energy that protected him whenever he communed with ghosts. Besides, why else would he have been unable to touch it while in possession of the Millennium Ring unless there was something sacred about it that rejected the Ring's influence?

"I do wish it, thank you," she murmured, starting to look relieved. "We all wish it, in fact, but first, there is something you must know." She fell silent, too frightened to continue.

"Yes, what is it?" Ryou's forehead creased with concern as he studied her expression as she worked up the courage to speak again.

At last, she swallowed past her fear, and whispered two words that seemed to carry a terrible weight and meaning with them: "He's back."

* * *

Maybe Duke simply couldn't survive his self-imposed sex-strike, or maybe he was simply too swept up in the party to care about it anymore. He was buzzed on mojitos and his body felt _alive_ from the music and the crowd and the dancing. He had missed the rush and the energy and the excitement of it all.

He and Ryou had split a while ago, agreeing that they'd text each other when they felt they were ready to go home. He'd joined up with Yugi and Joey and the others on the dancefloor, leaving intermittently for drinks before rejoining them again.

Now, though, he wasn't satisfied with _just_ dancing. He needed more. That was when he'd spotted the birthday boy himself, standing off on the outskirts of the party as he sipped his drink with a sour expression. Even though he had no business doing so, Duke strongly disapproved of Kaiba's apparent moodiness. He had the world at his fingertips and was fairly attractive besides. What did he have to be grumpy about? Determined to turn the brunette's frown upside down, Duke swaggered over to the duelist with a sly grin.

"Happy birthday, Kaiba," he greeted as he reached the CEO's side.

Kaiba blinked and turned his cobalt blue gaze on his former classmate. He "hmph'd" in response, but said nothing.

"Come now, Kaiba, I don't even get a hello?" Duke stepped closer to him, bracing one hand high on the wall Kaiba was leaning against.

"Hello."

"That's no way to greet an old friend," Duke chided, refusing to be discouraged by the executive's unresponsiveness.

"We were never friends."

"Then why don't we start now?" Duke offered, dropping his hand from the wall and holding it out to Kaiba. "I'm Duke Devlin, the creator of Dungeon Dice Monsters. Nice to meet you."

Kaiba stared down at Duke's hand, then glared at its owner. He drained his drink and placed it on the tray of a staff-member that passed by.

"You know, Kaiba," the shorter man began, dropping his hand to his side. "If that's how you respond to every offer of friendship, it's no wonder you're so lonely."

Seto started at that, surprise passing from his face to be quickly replaced with annoyance. "I'm not lonely."

"Like hell you're not," Duke retorted, the alcohol getting the better of him as he stepped right up to Kaiba, pressing the brunette's back into the wall, his hands resting on his chest. His fingertips subtlely stroked the smooth fabric of his dark blue shirt as color rose to Seto's cheeks. He was still trying to look annoyed, but now he looked more disgruntled, more... aroused.

"It gets pretty lonely at the top, doesn't it?" Duke murmured, on his toes as he stretched upwards towards Kaiba's face. His veins felt like they were filled with lava, a hot, burning pressure consuming him as his body ached for human intimacy. He'd already gone three months without it, but he still hadn't adjusted enough to the deprivation to prefer it, and right now, he was willing to do anything with and to Seto Kaiba. He hadn't yet been pushed away or told off, so he took that as a good sign.

"All of that money can't take the place of real people, now can it? It's just not good enough," Duke whispered, their faces quite close now as Seto was swept up in the current of Duke's seductive charm. Was he really going to allow this? Was he really going to let himself be seduced by the dark-haired dice-master? Then Duke licked his lips, and Seto was done.

No, he wasn't going to _allow_ this; he was going to _claim_ this for himself, as the pleasure he knew he deserved. His mouth possessed Duke's in a firm, demanding kiss as his hands found Duke's hips and tucked them against his own. The suave, sensual being pinning him to the wall moaned as he did so, encouraging Seto further. He already knew what he wanted from him, knew what he planned on doing with this bold creature who'd dared to call him out on his lies. Pure, unmitigated lust flooded Kaiba's mind as his hips rocked once into Duke's, the motion quickly answered with the same. Good, they were both on the same page concerning where this was going. Just as he was starting to fantasize about clutching Duke's head to his crotch and seeing those bright lips shine with more than his own saliva, everything was ruined for Seto.

"Fag."

He wrenched his mouth away from the other's, looking up to glare at his step-father. He could feel the late Mr. Kaiba's scorn and disgust like sandpaper rasping across his skin even as he felt warm, soft puffs of air against his chest through his shirt. He knew what Gozaburo wanted, and as much as Seto hated letting him win, he couldn't continue this with Duke knowing that Gozaburo would be watching and mocking him the whole time.

"I have to go."

Kaiba dislodged Duke and briskly strode towards the mansion, fleeing the party in order to confront his hallucination. Duke was shocked by this development, and he watched the tall brunette walk away for a few moments before it finally occurred to him to say something.

"Can I at least have a rain check?"

Seto was almost at the door when he turned and smirked at Duke. "Sure," he answered, then disappeared. Duke was still panting from the experience of kissing Kaiba as the man in question stalked the halls of his home, going straight to a place where he knew he'd have total privacy: the library. He slammed the door shut behind him and turned to the translucent image of Gozaburo.

"What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?" Seto demanded, arms crossed.

"I think the correct question is, what _the fuck_ is wrong with _you_?" That smug comeback stung more than Seto would ever admit to himself.

"Don't I _deserve_ to be happy? For _once_ , could you just _not_ screw things up for me?" Kaiba already knew what the answer would be, so he didn't know why he bothered asking. Maybe because he would like to hear that question answered in the affirmative at least once in his life.

Gozaburo opened his mouth to answer, but his expression was abruptly transformed from smug hatred to true terror. Sudden white light glowed brightly from behind the man, and Seto shielded his eyes from being blinded. With his arm in front of his face and his eyes screwed shut, he didn't see the doorway to the Afterlife open up behind his step-father. He didn't see the great rush of ghosts that forced Gozaburo Kaiba through that doorway with them as they all passed on to the other side. He didn't see the chalk pentagram glowing on the carpet around Ryou's feet.

When the brightness behind his eyelids faded, Kaiba dropped his arm and opened his eyes, Gozaburo nowhere in sight.

"Yes."

Seto's head snapped to look in the direction of the calm voice that broke the silence. There stood Ryou Bakura, tightly clutching the pendant of his necklace in one fist, stood only a few book-cases away, looking tired and paler than usual, but wearing a soft smile of satisfaction.

"What?"

"Yes, you _do_ deserve to be happy," Ryou replied, his kind words taking Seto by surprise as they struck him in the heart. Kaiba wanted to ask him what he was doing there and what had just happened, but before he could, Ryou took a step forward, swayed, and collapsed, his knees buckling under his own weight.

Seto rushed forward, shoving Gozaburo out of his mind as he tried to rouse the Brit. He was unconscious, though, having passed out. Brilliant. He gingerly lifted the shorter man in his arms, surprised by how light he was. He hesitated for a moment, not sure what to do with him. He did know one thing, though: he wasn't going to leave him alone in the library.

* * *

"And with no less nobility of love/ Than that which dearest father bears his son/ Do I impart toward you," Mokuba read aloud as he leaned against the inner wall of his pillow fort. He was reviewing the parts in _Hamlet_ that he'd already read with Seto, because he felt like there was more there for him to understand. These lines reminded him of Seto and himself: even though they were brothers, Seto was the closest thing Mokuba had to a father, and as such he acted and operated as one.

He was contemplating this when Seto himself entered the room, much to Mokuba's surprise. He was even more surprised, though, when he realized that Seto was carrying someone.

"Seto, what—"

"He passed out," Kaiba said brusquely as he approached the pillow fort. "Can you please keep an eye on him and let me know when he wakes up?"

"Of course," Mokuba answered, watching curiously as Seto lay his burden down inside the fort. For the younger Kaiba, it was of more interest to him that his brother was touching another person than the fact that Ryou Bakura had passed out. Kaiba straightened up and glanced down at his guest for a few moments before he cleared his throat and turned away.

"I'll see you later."

"Bye, have fun!"

Seto left the room, still feeling somewhat shell-shocked. He wasn't allowing himself to think about what had happened in the library. He couldn't bear to. Part of him wanted to return to the party, get drunk, and pretend nothing had happened, but he knew that being around people right now would just irritate him, so he instead retreated to the refuge of his own room. His hands trembled, but he couldn't let it show. He was alone, but he couldn't let it show.

Once locked into the safety of his room, he collapsed onto his bed and closed his eyes. He was tempted to sedate himself again, but he decided against it. It was too risky, given the present circumstances. Too many people were around, too many things could go wrong that would require his attention. He'd cope on his own for now.

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Okay, maybe that wasn't much of a plot-twist. Maybe you did see it coming, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless! And yes, FINALLY Seto runs into Duke and Ryou in this chapter! Separately, of course, but they'll all be in the same room for the first time next chapter... Maybe. ^-^ I dunno know yet.

Anyways, _**please review** _ and let me know what you think!


	10. Collision

Seto replayed every detail of the incident in his mind, trying to make sense of it in a way that wouldn't force him to revise his understanding of the world and the way it worked. But while he may be prone to denial when it was convenient for him, not even he could deny or explain away what had happened.

Looking at everything rationally actually forced him to accept the truth: that he had been haunted by the ghost of his step-father and that Ryou Bakura had somehow banished or destroyed that ghost. After all, the laws of logic dictated that it was impossible to prove a universal negative (i.e. that ghosts do not exist, cannot exist, and have never existed). There was nothing that could have impaired his senses, induced hallucination, or created an illusion of the exorcism. It had been real.

Accepting that was one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do, and he'd done plenty of difficult things in his young life.

* * *

When Ryou opened his eyes, he found himself staring up at a blanket ceiling.

"Ryou? Are you awake?"

The youth in question sat up and saw with a smile that he was inside a pillow fort with Mokuba.

"Yeah, I'm awake now," he said, rubbing his eyes a little before turning his gaze on the child, widening his smile a bit. "How did I get here?"

"Seto carried you," Mokuba answered with a grin. Ryou blinked. He always thought of the KaibaCorp president as Kaiba, not Seto. Seto. It sounded softer than his last name.

"That was very kind of him."

"Why did you pass out?" Mokuba asked curiously, putting a bookmark in his book before setting it down and crawling over. Ryou looked at Mokuba for a moment, trying to decide if he should tell the truth.

"I exorcised a ghost, and it made me tired," Ryou said casually, watching Mokuba's reaction.

"So ghosts _are_ real?" Mokuba looked intensely curious and unafraid. Good. Ryou hadn't wanted to frighten Kaiba's little brother.

"Yes, they are," Ryou answered calmly. "They're real, but they can't hurt you. They just want to pass on to the other side, so people like me help them do that."

"People like you?"

"Mediums."

"What's a medium?"

"Someone who can see and communicate with ghosts."

Mokuba processed this information for a few moments, then picked up his book and held it out to Ryou, who accepted the antique copy of Hamlet with surprise. "There are two ghosts in this story. Seto says that the first one is real, but the second one isn't. What do you think?"

"You're reading Hamlet already?" Ryou was genuinely impressed. "I didn't read Hamlet until I was fifteen. Technically, there's only one ghost, but he makes three appearances. Let's see." He started flipping through the pages, noticing that neat notes had been penciled into the margins. "Here's the first appearance of the ghost," he said, skimming over the pages. "This appearance isn't questioned by people. Obviously the guards are seeing things that they hadn't expected to see, and—"

"Seto says that ghost could be a demon, though," Mokuba interrupted. "Not that Seto believes in demons," he added hurriedly. "Or ghosts or angels or any of that. But he says that, within the world of the book, there are demons and ghosts and angels, so that's how we have to interpret it."

"He's right." Ryou was surprised to discover this literary side of Kaiba. It made him see the corporation president quite differently. "About the interpretation, I mean. All those things _are_ real, whether we believe in them or not." He turned back to the book, flipping to the next section. "Then we see the ghost a second time, and he's doing the same thing he was doing the first time, but this time he speaks to Hamlet and explains how he was killed and all that. Because his behavior is consistent with his behavior the first time, we know that it's the same ghost."

"But what about the third time?" Mokuba asked impatiently, his brow furrowed. "Is the ghost real, or is Hamlet going crazy?"

Ryou flipped to the section Mokuba was asking about, but he paused to chuckle at one of the marginal notations.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing," he answered, quickly flipping the pages. "Did your brother make these notes in here?" Mokuba shrugged, but Ryou thought that it must be so, because he saw a doodle that compared Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to Graceful Dice and Skull Dice. He chuckled again at the thought of a young Seto Kaiba doodling in his books.

"What's so funny?" Mokuba asked again, looking irked.

"Nothing, nothing." Ryou cleared his throat as he finally landed on the page with the scene Mokuba was asking about. "Usually, people question this scene because Gertrude doesn't see the ghost of Hamlet's father," he began, skimming the text to refamiliarize himself with the content. "And because in previous scenes, the ghost was seen by Horatio and the guards too. This is actually really easy to resolve, actually. You see, ghosts can choose to reveal themselves to a single person or to anyone present. Before, Hamlet's father was wandering the grounds hoping that a guard who knew his son saw him and would bring his son to him. Here, he only appears so that he can rebuke his son for overstepping his bounds." He glanced up at the child, whose face was pinched and wrinkled in confusion. "Does that not make sense?"

"It does," he said slowly. "But _how_ can ghosts decided who sees them?"

"I don't know, that's just the way it is," the college student answered with a shrug. The similarities between Kaiba and Hamlet weren't lost on him: both had been haunted by their father's ghost, but for very different reasons. The wraiths had told him very few details about Gozaburo Kaiba, but they'd told him that he was evil and cruel and that he was haunting his eldest step-son with the intention of making him miserable. Ryou had seen nothing to contradict any of that, but he had so many questions that he knew he had no right to ask.

"I think your phone is ringing," Mokuba said suddenly, interrupting Ryou's train of thought. He lifted his head and pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Hi Duke," he said as he pushed the call button and lifted his phone to his ear. "I guess you're ready to head home, huh?"

Duke laughed, sounding utterly silly on the other end of the line. "I'm not drunk, I swear," he said, much to Ryou's amusement.

"I didn't _say_ you were drunk," he replied, laughing a little himself. "Where are you right now?"

"I'm... inside," Duke answered slowly.

" _Where_ inside?" Ryou stood and carefully exited the pillow fort, Mokuba sighing as he lost his companion.

"Uh, the hallway... ?"

"You're lucky you have me to look after you, Duke," Ryou said with a smile as he walked towards the door. "You're helpless, you know?"

"But that's what makes me cute, right?"

As Ryou opened the door and stuck his head out, chuckling to himself. "Yes, Duke, _that's_ what makes you cute." He blushed a little as he stopped himself from saying the things that he thought _actually_ made Duke an incredibly attractive person. He looked in one direction, then the other. "Which hallway are you in?"

"Do you want me to sing for you so you find me?" Duke suggested, still sounding as giggly as a middle-school girl.

"How about a game of Marco-Polo," Ryou suggested instead.

"Don't you like it when I sing?" the gamer whined.

"Yes, I do, but I don't know if _Kaiba_ would like it that you're singing in his house," Ryou explained as he stepped outside the room, a curious Mokuba on his heels. He was now speaking the way he would if he was explaining things to a small child: patiently, but perpetually amused. "Marco!" Ryou called after moving the receiver away from his mouth.

"Polo!"

"Ow! Move the phone away from your mouth and try again, Duke."

"Polo!"

"This way," Ryou said, looking to Mokuba, who nodded confirmation. They walked down the hall until they came to an intersection. "Marco!"

"Polo!"

Ryou took a left and as he and Mokuba walked down the hall together, he called out again, "Marco!"

"Polo!"

The sound was very close. Ryou sprinted to the end of the hall and looked down the path to the right. He let out a laugh as he hung up the phone and approached his roommate.

"Duke, what on earth are you doing?"

Duke was lying on his back on the floor, his feet resting wide apart on the wall as he stared at the ceiling.

"I'm talking to you!" he answered enthusiastically, still talking into his phone.

"Duke, we're up here," Ryou teased as he walked toward his friend, stopping close enough that he could smile down at him and click his tongue at him in disapproval. "You're going to get us kicked out, I swear."

"Nope!" He hung up his phone and waved it in the air with a silly grin. "I got his number."

"How did you…? Oh, nevermind." Ryou decided to brush off the claim. It wasn't important right now. He glanced over at Mokuba for a moment, who seemed content to enjoy the show, then knelt down by Duke. "Come on, let's get you out to the car." It was a struggle to get Duke to stand up, especially once he started telling stupid knock-knock jokes and making ridiculous puns that not even Mokuba found to be funny. Ryou and Mokuba were still laughing, though, because it was so funny watching Duke tell awful jokes and crack himself up.

"Wait, wait, one more," Duke insisted as Ryou tried to pull him upright. "Why did the plane crash?"

"I don't know Duke, why did the plane crash?" Mokuba asked cheekily.

"Don't encourage him," Ryou muttered, rolling his eyes.

"Because the pilot was a loaf of bread!" Duke burst out into another fit of laughter.

"Do you invent these jokes, or do you get them from eight-year-olds?" As annoyed as Ryou pretended to be, he was more amused than anything else. Trying to pull Duke up into a standing position had been like a drunken dance, but he was relieved when he was finally able to sling Duke's arm over his shoulder and keep him upright.

"Mokuba, how do we get out to our car?" Ryou asked, blowing a stray lock of hair out of his face. He would have moved it by hand if he could have spared a hand to do so.

"This way," he said, taking Duke's other hand and helping him tug their inebriated friend along. They made it as far as the first corner, but the act of turning was enough to make a giggling Duke topple on top of Ryou and bring them both to the ground. All Mokuba had to do was release Duke's hand and step to the side to avoid him, but Ryou was pinned down by his friend, who was too silly to care.

"Duke, you're squashing me with your big butt." Ryou's comment made Mokuba giggle as the Brit tried to push his way out from under the dice-master, but Duke just rolled over and threw an arm around Ryou, humming and mumbling to himself incoherently.

"It doesn't look that big to me."

Ryou froze and felt heat rising to his cheeks. He knew that deep, resonant voice. He almost didn't want to look up, but how could he not? He raised his head slowly, craning his neck back to lift his gaze to the familiar face of Seto Kaiba. He was smirking down at the pair of them, and Mokuba was laughing even more, finding the entire situation hilarious.

"Mokuba, didn't I tell you to tell me when he woke up?" The brunette fixed his brother with a stern gaze, and the child immediately stopped laughing and looked abashed.

"Sorry, I forgot," he muttered, making his brother sigh almost imperceptibly. Then his sapphire gaze turned back to the pair of party-guests on the floor.

"Do you need help with him?" Kaiba asked, nodding towards Duke.

"Uh, I-I think so," Ryou admitted reluctantly. "I mean, I tried to get him up, but—"

He stopped short as Kaiba bent down and easily lifted Duke off of Ryou, hefting him over one shoulder. Ryou quickly stood and brushed himself off a bit, flustered by this turn of events. He picked up Duke's phone off the floor and tucked it into his own pocket, glancing up at Kaiba again, who watched him thoughtfully.

"You were on your way out, I assume?"

Ryou nodded bashfully, lurching into motion as Kaiba turned and started walking away, having to move more quickly to keep up with the quick pace his long legs allowed him.

"Thank you for your help," the flustered Brit said, his words somewhat rushed. "I wasn't sure how I was going to handle him by myself."

"You're welcome." Kaiba watched Ryou for a moment, looking like he wanted to say something.

"I don't mind being handled," Duke giggled, lifting his head to roguishly grin at his roommate. His legs dangled down Kaiba's back, swinging carelessly.

"I'm sorry about him—"

"Don't apologize." The brunette fully turned his head when he looked at Ryou this time. "It's a sign of weakness."

"Or a sign of humility," Ryou countered without missing a beat, which impressed Seto, even though he didn't show it.

"What's the difference between humility and shame?"

"Humility is a virtue, while shame is a natural byproduct of wrongdoing."

"And what defines a virtue? Who decides that criteria?"

"Virtues are like the laws of nature. They're not defined or determined by people. They simply _are_." Ryou snuck a peek at Kaiba, surprised at finding himself in a philosophical discussion with the president of KaibaCorp.

"I like your shoes, Duke." Mokuba's voice sounded from behind them, surprising them both a little.

"Mokuba, it's past your bedtime."

"But I want to stay up!" Mokuba whined like the small child he was.

"We're not arguing about this, Mokuba. Go get ready for bed."

"Will you come to say goodnight?" Mokuba asked, wanting to ensure that his brother didn't forget to do so on a night when he had so many distractions.

"Yes, now get a move on, kiddo."

"Okay. Bye Ryou! Bye Duke!" Mokuba called before scampering off to do as he was told.

The interaction between the brothers touched Ryou's heart, making him see the elder in a new light. He never thought he'd hear the great Seto Kaiba, who seemed so above the rest of the world, say the word "kiddo." For those few moments, he'd witnessed how the shattered remnants of the Kaiba family, a pair of brothers twice orphaned and preyed upon by corporate corruption, managed to function as a family all on their own. _"Nobody hurts my family and gets away with it."_ That was what Kaiba had said when he was dueling Pegasus for Mokuba's soul. Ryou now understood the significance of that statement: Kaiba didn't consider himself to have or derive from a broken family. Mokuba _was_ his family, his _whole_ family.

"What were you doing in the library?"

The question pulled Ryou out of his own thoughts. "I was just needed somewhere quiet to sit for a while. All of the noise was giving me a headache."

Kaiba could accept that. He felt a touch high on his thigh and glanced down to see Duke trying to slide his hand inside the brunette's pants pocket. Seto rolled his eyes and casually removed Duke's hand from his pocket as Ryou dashed out in front of them to open the front door for Kaiba, letting the brunette carry his roommate out into the chilly night.

"What exactly… happened in there?" Kaiba asked hesitantly, and Ryou couldn't remember ever hearing him hesitate before.

"You mean with Duke, or…?" Ryou wasn't sure what kaiba was referring to.

"In the library, I mean," he clarified. "What was that?" Kaiba had already made up his mind about it, but now that he'd accepted it, he needed to understand it.

"I… sent him away," Ryou answered simply as he trotted down the marble stairs beside Seto. "He won't bother you again."

"How did you know—?"

"The ghosts told me. I know that's probably not the answer you want to hear, but it's true."

Kaiba looked troubled, in Ryou's opinion. It was the only fitting descriptor that he could attach to the billionaire's current expression. It wasn't confusion, even though it might be anticipated; it wasn't irritation, even though it might be expected; it wasn't anger, even though it might be likely.

"Explain it to me."

Ryou handed the tag to the valet who subsequently disappeared to fetch Duke's car, then looked up at Seto in surprise. "It's complicated."

"I'm sure I could understand it."

"But I don't think you'd accept it."

"Try me."

"It's a hard pill to swallow."

"I'm sure I've handled harder."

Ryou sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, rubbing at his temple with the heel of his hand. How was Seto so alert and clear-thinking at this time of night?

"It's late, and I'm not sure I could explain it properly right now," Ryou admitted as he opened his large eyes and turned their soft brown gaze toward the brunette, who was removing Duke's hand from his pocket a second time. "Perhaps I could explain it to you another time?"

"I look forward to it. Let me give you number."

"I already have your number," Duke piped up then, a teasing, sing-song quality in his voice.

"No you don't." Seto frowned down at his burden as the younger man turned his head to grin up at him crookedly. "And cut that out," he added, reaching down to stop Duke's hand from trying to dive into his pocket again. "Why do you keep doing that?" Duke chuckled while Ryou gasped in shock.

"Duke! Honestly, I expected better from you." Ryou sounded like a parent cross with an unruly child.

"Not my problem." Duke giggled again as Kaiba sighed and used his free hand to hold both of Duke's wrists together and keep him from getting into anymore mischief.

"I should have picked him up the other way around," Seto grumbled.

"I don't think that would have made much difference." Ryou's eyes twinkled as he suppressed a laugh, imagining Duke trying to poke around in Kaiba's back pockets.

"You wouldn't happen to have a sharpie, would you?"

"I actually think I do." As Ryou pulled the permanent marker out of his pocket, Kaiba set Duke down on his feet, holding the other's shoulders to steady him. Ryou handed him the sharpie from his pocket, and Kaiba uncapped it before lifting Duke's arm and writing his cell number on the smooth skin.

"There. Now you both have my number." He handed the sharpie back to Ryou, who was trying not to look utterly astonished at what Kaiba had just done. "Call me when you want to meet, and I'll make time for you." He looked up at Ryou again as he released Duke's shoulder, thinking that the Dungeon Dice Monsters creator could probably manage to stand on his own now. "Don't look at me like that. It's not like I carry my business cards with me when I'm in my own house."

Duke tipped forward and leaned against Kaiba, boldly throwing his arms around the brunette's neck. He mumbled something quiet and lurid into Kaiba's ear that Ryou couldn't hear, and it was enough to make the CEO blush a little.

"Okay, that's enough out of you." Kaiba forcibly removed Duke's arms and quickly distanced the two of them, maintaining his hold on Duke's wrists to keep him an arm's length away.

The valet drove up in Duke's classic convertible just then, saving them all from anymore awkwardness. Duke broke from Kaiba's hold and tried to reach for the keys as the valet held them out, but Ryou grabbed them just in time.

"There's no way that I'm going to let you drive like this," Ryou reprimanded his roommate with a superior air as he held the keychain out of Duke's reach. A flash of movement caught his attention, and he turned his head to see Seto retreating to the mansion. "Thank you, Kaiba!" he called, waving at him with the hand that held Duke's keys. Seto turned for a moment and waved briefly back, a smirk teasing his features into something pleasant as he watched Duke leaning over Ryou to try and grab his car keys.

* * *

 **Author Notes:** If you enjoyed this, then please review, because the more reviews I get, the sooner I update!

And for those of you who are curious about how much alcohol Duke consumed, he's currently walking the thin line between buzzed and drunk. He drank enough to act like... this, but not enough to get sick or severely hungover.

Fun fact, btw. The joke about the plane crashing and the loaf of bread is used as an exhaustion test in my friend group at my college. The funnier you think the joke is, the more sleep-deprived you are.


	11. Laughter

"Come on, Duke, let's get you to bed." Ryou shifted his hold on Duke in order to help him get into their apartment. Duke was getting heavier and less cooperative as he started to crash from his buzz, making him more difficult to handle.

"Your bed or mine?" the dice-master slurred with a silly laugh.

As Ryou tried to walk Duke towards his room, Duke swung around in front of him and put his arms around Ryou in an intimate way. Ryou froze, blushing as Duke leaned in and kissed his cheek.

"Duke." Ryou's breath caught in his throat, and he couldn't speak. He stared into Duke's glowing green eyes, trying to maintain a level of resistance, but finding it incredibly difficult.

"Yes, my darling?" Duke purred, his cheek brushing against Ryou's. A soft whine sounded from Ryou's throat, surprising himself and making Duke chuckle. "You want more kisses, don't you?" Duke pressed his lips to Ryou's, and the Brit couldn't help that he melted into Duke. He _wanted_ to be kissed, and he wanted _Duke_ to kiss him. Duke deepened the kiss into something wet and somewhat sloppy, but Ryou didn't care. He wanted passion and tongues touching and bare skin and he had been so _afraid_ of wanting all that ever since he'd been freed of Bakura that he'd been too scared of trying to have any of it. When the kiss broke, and Duke butted his nose into his roommate's cheek, leaning heavily on him as a heavy feeling of dreaded settled in Ryou's stomach like a stone.

"Oh gods, what have I done?" he whispered in horror, then looked down at Duke, who was falling asleep on his feet, and swallowed hard. _He won't remember any of this tomorrow, right?_ he thought as he helped Duke to his room. There was some part of him that wished for an answer to echo back from the recesses of his mind, but Bakura was gone, and he was left to handle his fears alone.

"There you go," he sighed with relief as he shoved Duke towards his own bed so that he fell onto it instead of the floor. He wasn't sure what to do now; Duke was laying there giggling like a little girl, but he was still fully clothed. "You can take care of yourself now, right?"

Duke muttered something incoherent and started kicking off his shoes, which Ryou took as a sign that he was competent enough to be left to himself. Ryou went to bed with the taste of Duke and tequila on his lips, their kiss tumbling around in his mind through a thousand different filters to see every outcome imaginable. Only once he'd exhausted every possibility did Ryou's mind finally quiet enough for him to fall asleep.

* * *

When Ryou woke up the next morning, Duke was singing in the shower, sounding exuberant, of all things. Ryou'd expected him to be hungover, but Ryou was the one feeling groggy and sluggish, not Duke.

"She's my cherry pie! Put a smile on your face, ten miles wide! Looks so good, bring a tear to your eye! Sweet cherry pie!"

Ryou could hear Duke's singing over the whistling of the tea kettle. As he poured the hot water into his mug, the steam curling up and wreathing around his face, he listened with one ear to the progression of the song.

"Swingin' to the drums, swingin' to guitar, swingin' to the bass in the back of my car! Ain't got money, ain't got no gas, but we'll get where we're goin' if we swing real fast!"

 _Holy Ra, it's a sex song_ , he grumbled mentally, seating himself at the counter with his mug of lavender tea as he blew on it to cool it down. He couldn't help but wonder if Duke had broken his fast last night.

"I scream, you scream, we all scream for her! Don't even try 'cause you can't ignore her! She's my cherry pie! Cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise! Tastes so good, make a grown man cry! Sweet cherry pie, oh yeah!"

Duke's volume only went down once he turned off the shower, as was usual for him. The sound of the shower was replaced with the blow-dryer, though, and the singing got louder again.

"She's my cherry pie! Put a smile on your face, ten miles wide! Looks so good, bring a tear to your eye! Sweet cherry pie, oh yeah! Swing it!"

When Duke finally emerged from the bathroom, his hair half-dry, a towel around his waist, steam spilling out of the room from behind him, Ryou was still half-asleep, his hair unbrushed and his pajamas askew.

"Good morning," Duke chimed much too cheerfully, ducking into his room with the door open as he began to dress.

"Good morning." Ryou turned his back on the doorway, trying to force the color out of his cheeks.

"How did you sleep?" Duke asked as pulled on fresh underwear.

"Well enough, how about you?"

"I slept great!" Duke reemerged wearing black skinny jeans, the waistband of his underwear just barely visible, but wearing nothing else that could be seen. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail as usual, and he went straight into the kitchen to start taking things out of the fridge.

"I'm surprised. You seemed pretty wasted last night. I was sure you'd be hungover." Ryou sipped his tea, his elbows resting on the counter as he held the mug in both hands.

"I don't get hungover very easily. I'd have to be just sitting at the bar drinking nonstop for that to happen." He nudged the fridge door closed with his hips as he turned around, arms full of ingredients. "Want an omelet?"

"Sure." As Duke started laying things out, Ryou watched him, noticing the phone number on his arm. He started to chuckle as he remembered their encounter with Kaiba. Since Duke didn't seem to remember their kiss last night—thank Ra for that—he might not remember how the number came to be on his arm.

"What's so funny?" Indeed, Duke had no recollection of kissing Ryou last night, but even if he did, he might not have said anything about it just to spare Ryou the embarrassment. He was even more likely to ask Ryou if he could kiss him again.

"It looks like you made a new friend last night," he said with a teasing smile, nodding towards the phone number. Duke looked down at it and laughed a little too.

"I suppose so, although I can't for the life of me remember who wrote it."

"Why don't you call the number and find out?"

"I just might do that. Can you put it in my phone for me? It's still in my room."

"Sure." Ryou set down his mug and hopped up from his stool, going to Duke's room and checked the nightstand first, where it would normally be plugged in to charge, but it wasn't there. Of course not. Duke wouldn't have thought to do that last night. After a little rummaging around through dirty clothes on the floor, he finally found it in the pockets of his pants from last night. He returned to the kitchen, where Duke was frying mixed vegetables in a pan on the stove while beating eggs.

"Your battery's almost dead," Ryou informed him as he unlocked Duke's phone—they both knew each other's phone passcodes by now—and opened the contacts. Instead of returning to his seat, he stood by the counter behind Duke and plugged his phone into the charger there. "What's the number?"

Duke read it aloud, and as Ryou created the contact, he decided to be gracious and enter Kaiba's name with the number. As amusing as it would be to see him call Kaiba without knowing who would answer, he figured Duke was more likely to get an answering machine than have Kaiba answer the phone. The latter was the more hilarious possibility, but since it was unlikely, Ryou figured he'd tell the truth and get a kick out of that instead. Before turning around again, though, he quickly jotted the number down on a post-it note, folded it in half with the sticky part on the inside, and slid it into the pocket of his pajama pants.

"Do you remember when we left the party last night?" Ryou asked innocently as he returned to his stool and picked up his mug again.

"Not at all. Why, did something happen?"

Ryou grinned and fought the urge to laugh. "You called me when you were ready to leave, but it was hard finding you, so we had to play Marco Polo so I could track you down inside the mansion. Then, when I found you, you were too silly to stand."

"What was I doing?"

"You were on the floor with your feet on the wall, and I was trying to make you stand up when Kaiba showed up."

"He _did_?" Duke exclaimed in amused incredulity.

"He did," Ryou affirmed, starting to laugh despite himself. "He offered to help me get you to your car"—Duke seemed shocked at the notion that Kaiba would voluntarily help anybody—"so he had to throw you over his shoulder to get you out!"

Duke started laughing hard, and he at least had the good dignity to blush in embarrassment, because he _did_ recall how he'd kissed Kaiba in a margarita-induced haze, and he figured that had influenced Kaiba's decision to carry him.

"Oh man, I sure wish I could remember that."

"You kept reaching into his pockets, too," Ryou added, relishing in the story. "I have no idea why he put up with it. You were pretty persistent about it, too. What on earth were you trying to do?"

"I was probably hoping to find some gold nuggets," Duke joked as he poured the beaten eggs into the frying pan over the food. Ryou's giggle encouraged him to continue. "He practically sweats money. I bet the maids in his mansion sweep up gold dust all the time then sell it online for some extra cash." Ryou was laughing pretty hard now, so hard that he'd had to set down his mug to keep his tea from getting spilled. "If we were to x-ray him, we'd see that his veins are filled with pure gold and his bones are steel-plated. It's all in preparation for his species-change operation."

"His what?!" Ryou gasped, wiping a tear from his eye as he fought for air.

"His species-change operation," Duke repeated, winking at Ryou mischievously. "Didn't you know? He's in the process of turning himself into a dragon. Having a dragon-shaped jet just wasn't good enough for him."

Ryou laughed so hard that it hurt, and he eventually had to put his head down on the counter with his arms, his laughter silent and his shoulders shaking.

"Are you okay?" Duke asked, a little concerned now that he'd gone too far with the jokes and killed Ryou with humor.

"I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard," Ryou answered breathlessly as he lifted his head from the counter again, his face pink and his smile broader than Duke had ever seen before.

And Duke was proud to be the one who'd put that smile there.

* * *

 **Author Note:** I'm sorry if it seems like what Duke's saying isn't funny enough to induce such a reaction from Ryou. I try to be funny, I really do, but I'm only human. And my family doesn't think I'm that funny either, so you're not alone in that opinion. _**Please review anyways!**_


	12. Cafe

**Author Notes** : Euroshipping for the win!

* * *

Ryou stared down at Kaiba's contact in his phone, trying to work up the nerve to call him. He'd waited two weeks to do so, partly because he was nervous of speaking to the intimidating executive one on one, and partly because the pressure created by spirits on his mental barriers during Halloween and the days surrounding it put an uncomfortable strain on his mind.

In past years, Bakura had covered Halloween for him, doing horrible things no doubt, but when Bakura hadn't been in control, the spirits screaming at the edges of his mind had caused Ryou tremendous pain. As his mediumistic abilities weakened, so did the pain associated with Halloween and several other significant days of the year. Ryou suspected that this would be his last Halloween that he felt their presence, which would be a massive relief for him. He was content to leave spirits behind for the rest of his life.

He stared at his phone and took a deep breath, then called his former classmate's cellphone number. He put the phone to his ear and skimmed the small notepad upon which he'd written what he was going to say. He could imagine that he was one of the few people in the world who needed to do that before making a phone call, but otherwise he knew he'd stammer pathetically, forget what he truly needed to say, and end up feeling like an idiot, so to avoid all of that, he simply wrote down on paper all of the things he anticipated he'd need to say. He was ashamed to admit that he'd put off phone calls for hours, even days, simply because of his anxiety. His therapist was the one who'd taught him to write everything down first.

He held his breath as he counted how many times Kaiba's phone rang, grateful that he'd also written down what he would say if he needed to leave a voicemail. One… Two… Three…

"Kaiba. Who is this?" His answer was gruff and professional, all business.

"Hello, it's Ryou Bakura," the Brit answered a little breathlessly. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. How about you?" Although he probably did so a dozen times a day, he didn't sound _comfortable_ while exchanging formalities.

"I'm doing well, thank you," Ryou answered primly. So far, so good. He hadn't tripped over his own tongue just yet. "I was wondering if there was a time that you wanted to meet next week to discuss… things." Ryou knew that Kaiba struggled with understanding spirits and souls, and he wanted to be sensitive about his one intellectual difficulty. Proud people had very fragile egos, after all, and the last thing he wanted to do was wound him and put him on the defensive. He never wanted to be on the receiving end of Seto Kaiba's anger.

The other end of the line was silent for a few moments, but Kaiba broke the tension when he said, "I'm available for an hour on Tuesday at one-thirty."

"Oh, good, I'm free then too. Where should we—"

"There's a decent coffee shop three blocks east from KaibaCorp HQ. Do you have transportation?"

"Yes, I can make it there easily," Ryou assured, feeling fluttery inside for reasons he couldn't understand. He'd gotten coffee with friends before—Marik, Duke, Yugi, even Ishizu—so why did it feel different with Kaiba? "Sounds like a plan, then. I'll meet you there."

"Goodbye."

Kaiba hung up, and Ryou did too, breathing a heavy sigh as he leaned against the back of the bench he sat on. He wasn't even bothered by Kaiba's abrupt, terse manner of speaking. He was just proud of himself for not screwing it up. The more he thought about the tall brunette, the more eager—and the more nervous—he felt.

Suddenly it dawned on him why it felt so different to be having coffee with Kaiba than it did when he made plans with any of his other friends: Seto Kaiba was an untouchable deity atop an ivory tower. His dragons devoured anyone who tried to come close, but for some reason, Ryou had been granted permission to ascend the pearly spiral steps towards Seto's soul. Maybe he wouldn't make it very far. Maybe he'd be banished after his first attempt, but he was at least being given a chance, which was more than anyone else ever got.

At least he was getting a chance to be Kaiba's friend.

* * *

Tuesday was breezy, so Ryou had wrapped his hair into a tight bun on the back of his head. His bangs still fell around his face, wispy strands that he had to keep pushing away from his eyes during morning classes. It was a somewhat warm day for mid-November, but it was still cold enough that Ryou wore a coat over his sweater. The black- and grey-striped garment was thin, true, but he was also wearing a black long-sleeve shirt underneath. His dark blue skinny jeans added the only element of color to his outfit, since his worn black converse sneakers adorned his feet. They weren't very warm, but his socks kept his toes from freezing.

He called a taxi after his 90-minute Latin class and asked the driver to take him to KaibaCorp HQ. It was a short drive, but the distance was just long enough that he wouldn't have wanted to walk there from campus _and_ walk back.

Standing on the pavement with his hands in the pocket of his black pea-coat, he lifted his eyes towards the sky to check the position of the sun. It was strange for Kaiba to have said that the cafe was "three blocks east" from his office building. As Ryou turned and started walking in what he hoped was the right direction, he wondered why his directions had been phrased that way.

Something occurred to him, and he turned around, looking back up at the sun. If it were just over the horizon and he were facing it on this street, it would be glaring into his eyes with harsh force. Maybe this coffee shop was one of Kaiba's favorites, and he went there every morning. It was a silly guess, nothing more, but it was enough to sate Ryou's curiosity for now. Without further ado, he turned back around and put in his earbuds. He wanted to be there early, before Kaiba. He didn't want to keep the brunette waiting for him.

Eight minutes later, Ryou was sitting at a table for two with his gloved hands wrapped around a cup of cherry blossom green tea. He hadn't even known such a thing existed, but he'd decided to try it when he saw it on the shop's list of teas. It was absolutely _divine_. Even if he and Kaiba never spoke again after this, he'd definitely be returning, just for the tea.

His black gloves were fingerless, so his fingers were especially grateful for the heat of the paper cup against his skin. As he sipped his tea and watched the door to the cafe for Kaiba's arrival, he thought back to what he'd seen of the tall brunette two weeks ago at the mansion.

The ghosts in the library had told him about Gozaburo and how he was haunting Seto Kaiba. The wouldn't tell Ryou specifically what Gozaburo did or said, they only said how he affected Seto, who seemed to be a subject of pity for them all: "He makes him angry. He keeps him awake. He makes him sad." Angry, tired, hurt, sad... Those words had been whispered repeatedly by the cloud of spirits. So, Seto was distressed, but Ryou couldn't determine how long this had been going on. Ryou hoped that Kaiba had begun getting more sleep since his step-father had been banished.

 _"Don't I deserve to be happy?"_

Kaiba had asked his step-father's ghost that question, looking like he was at the end of his rope and ready to explode. If that's how Kaiba felt, no wonder the ghosts pitied him. Ryou was tempted to feel the same way, but he knew that Kaiba loathed pity. He'd scorned pity when offered by Yugi; there was no reason for him not to do the same when it was offered by Ryou.

So he couldn't expressly pity him, but he could be patient with him. Ryou knew what it was like to be terrorized by a long-dead spirit; Duke had been patient with him—was _still_ being patient with him, for that matter—and Ryou was immensely grateful for it. Kaiba deserved the same patience and understanding.

Even as Ryou was musing about Kaiba, that very man walked in, ordered "the usual," and upon receiving his coffee, approached the one he'd come to meet.

"Hello, Kaiba," Ryou greeted, straightening up the instant he became aware of the brunette's near presence.

"I hope you haven't been waiting long," Kaiba said as he sat down.

"Not at all, I've only been here a few minutes." He sipped his tea as Kaiba took a sip of his own black coffee. "You wanted me to explain what I did in the library with the ghosts, if I remember correctly. Is that right?"

"Yes, but before that, there's something else I wanted to ask you."

"Sure, anything."

"When I was walking you and your friend out to your car, you compared virtues are like the laws of nature. What do you mean by that?"

Ryou nibbled on his bottom lip for a moment. "The only way I can think to explain it is with an example. Like, you and I would agree that sexism is bad, right?"

"Of course."

"And when one man is sexist and treats women badly, that's a bad thing. It hurts the people around him and his relationships with others. But if we extrapolate that sexism from an individual to a society, we can see more of its damaging effects. If we create an entire hypothetical society of sexists and just let them live their lives for a few hundred years, the population would become severely imbalanced in favor of men, women would be slaves and legally treated as animals. Succeeding generations of females would be getting smaller because providing girls with medical care would be considered an unnecessary luxury, and it would always be subordinate to medical care for men. Women who are treated poorly, which would be a fair amount of them, would try to escape. Due to the shortage of females and the surplus of men wanting wives, women on the borders of neighboring countries would be at high risk for abduction. There would be no immigration into the country. No new families would be coming into the population, and most likely families and bachelors would also be emigrating. This kind of society is destroying itself with its collective and institutionalized idealogy. It was destroying the community on a national level, but it would also prevent individuals from achieving happiness and enrichment."

Ryou spoke slowly, his gestures smooth and natural, his face expressive, but in a candid way that spoke of genuine emotion, as opposed to Joey's own clownishness. Kaiba was content to watch him speak and listen to his logic. It was fascinating how he could watch his train of thought playing out in his eyes.

"So, I guess the way to abstract what I'm trying to say," Ryou continued, looking contemplative. "Is that virtue tends to align with that which perpetuates life and promotes human flourishing."

"Why does life matter?" Kaiba asked calmly.

"Objectively speaking, simply because of the ontological argument: it is better to exist than to not exist."

"What about the existence of death? Wouldn't it be better for it to exist, by that definition?"

"No. Death is an absence, not a presence, so it is synonymous with nonexistent life, which is bad."

So their discussion continued for a solid hour. Ryou did most of the talking, but the conversation wouldn't have gone anywhere without Kaiba's constant questions. The conversation meandered through many philosophical matters without Ryou realizing that they never got to the topic they'd meant to speak about in the first place: how Ryou had exorcised Gozaburo's ghost.

"... And that's why marriage is so important," the white-haired Brit mused, still holding his now-empty cup of tea. "If you'll pardon my bluntness, when a man gets a woman knocked up, then ditches her because he doesn't want the responsibility, it further perpetuates a lack of values, a sense of entitlement instead of a sense of personal responsibility, and ultimately drives the crime rates up. It's true what they say, that the person most likely to abuse a child is 'mom's boyfriend.' The Cinderella legend exists for a reason: step-parents tend to be unkind to their spouse's previous children. It makes perfect biological sense, because those children are a threat. And we see that impulse reflected in nature: when a lion drives out another lion from his pride and claims the other's females as his own, he will also drive out and even kill all of the cubs the first lion fathered. Lions don't even _have_ the level of consciousness to remember their father and then, later in life, kill the new leader of the pride in order to avenge their father's death, but they still recognize a threat. The bottom line is that previous children threaten a non-biological patriarch." Only when those words passed his lips did Ryou realize _who_ he was talking to and why he should have been more conscious of his audience before speaking so freely on the subject. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"Don't apologize." Kaiba dismissed Ryou's apology with a wave of his hand. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"Oh, goodness, that's what we were supposed to be talking about, wasn't it?" His cheeks turned pink as embarrassment washed over him. "I didn't mean to get us side-tracked. And now I only have"—he checked his watch—"a few minutes at best. I didn't mean to waste so much of your time."

"If it was a waste, I would have stopped you from rambling," Kaiba said calmly, a bit surprised by how flustered the college student seemed. Why did he feel so bad? If Kaiba had wanted him to shut up, he would have said so. "I do need to get back to the office, though," he said as he stood up, Ryou quickly doing the same. "I have a board meeting soon. We can address the issue next time."

"Next time?" Ryou couldn't help but feel pleased at the prospect of a 'next time.' "Of course. I look forward to it." Was that improper of him to say? He hoped not, because it was true. He could imagine that Seto didn't often have people saying that they sincerely wished to see him again. If any of his colleagues, associates, or employees said it, it would only be out of common courtesy.

"I have a few business trips this week and next, but after that I should have more availability," Kaiba said as he walked over to the trash-can and deposited his own empty cup, Ryou doing the same, then following the brunette out the door. "Call me then, and we'll work something out."

"Sounds good."

As Kaiba started walking towards KaibaCorp HQ, Ryou followed at his side. After a few moments of this, Kaiba stopped and looked down at him questioningly.

"Oh, I'm headed in this direction," Ryou explained. "Is it alright if I walk with you?"

"I don't see why not."

They walked in comfortable silence until they reached their place of parting. Kaiba hadn't planned to speak again, but when Ryou stopped and turned towards him, he didn't have much choice.

"Thank you for taking the time to meet with me," he said as he held out his hand, sounding both genuine and courteous. "I know you're very busy."

"I'm sure the same is true for you, Bakura," Kaiba replied, shaking his hand firmly. They parted then, and only when Kaiba was riding the elevator back to his top-floor office did he realize that _he_ should have been the one expressing thanks.


	13. Friendship

Duke sighed as he stared at Kaiba's contact in his phone. He'd already let weeks go by; would Kaiba still remember their encounter a few months from now when Duke finally called him to collect on that rain check? Would it even be a good idea?

Duke had already vowed to break his sexual fast with someone other than Ryou, because he wanted to know for sure that his feelings for his roommate were real, and that was the best method he could conceive. Kaiba was an ideal candidate because he knew that sleeping with Kaiba would never be more than a one-night stand.

Would Kaiba still want to see him, though? Their kiss had been unplanned, incidental, spontaneous. They'd both been drinking, and who was to say that Kaiba would want to see him again when he was sober? Then Duke looked back at his arm, the one where Kaiba had written his number in sharpie. Kaiba wouldn't have done that unless he _wanted_ Duke to have his number when he sobered up.

The real question was, how long was Duke willing to wait?

Life carried on as usual with minimal incidents. November came and marched forward into winter, prompting Duke to keep a closer eye on Ryou than ever. His exams were coming up and he was worried how the stress would affect his roommate. His greatest struggle was being close to Ryou without getting too close.

* * *

Ryou met Kaiba again before the end of November, but this time, they arrived at almost the same time. They made brief small talk while waiting in line together, but neither of them were very big on meaningless conversation, so it only took a few moments for them to run out of things to say. The silence was comfortable, though, and while Ryou ordered his tea, Kaiba frowned at some work-related emails on his cell; while Ryou added honey to his tea, Kaiba ordered "the usual." He received his coffee quickly, just as Ryou was replacing the lid on his tea. Ryou turned to Kaiba and they started walking towards a small table together.

"How's Mokuba do-Oh!" Ryou cut himself off as the paper cup weakened in his hand, the lid popped off, and the scalding hot water spilled onto his gloved hand.

"Hold on." Kaiba took the lid and the cup, quickly placing them on the nearest empty table and moving away to grab some paper napkins from the dispenser. When he returned, Ryou was sitting at the table and tugging off his fingerless glove, which was now decently damp with hot water.

"Thank you. I'm so sorry, I can be such a klutz sometimes." Ryou's cheeks went pink in a bashful blush as he first dried his hand with a napkin, then wrapped his knit glove in a napkin and squeezed, trying to dry it. Kaiba just watched him, leaving the top off of the cup to release the steam and let the tea cool to a tolerable temperature more quickly. Kaiba's phone buzzed on the table, making him frown and pick it up so he could silence it for the time being. He almost never put his phone on silent mode.

"Did it burn you?" he asked before sipping his coffee and setting his phone aside.

"It still hurts a bit, but I don't think it's burned," Ryou answered tentatively, holding out his left hand and turning it to inspect it carefully. Kaiba's eyes widened fractionally, and before Ryou could realize what Kaiba was doing, his hand was caught between a firm thumb and nimble fingers, and Kaiba was turning it to get a better look at the palm and the back. Ryou was frozen, his face heating with embarrassment. He kept his hands covered for a reason. Cobalt blue eyes studiously examined the rough spidery scars on both sides of his hand. While Kaiba was not highly expressive, Ryou was perceptive enough to see the surprise in his features. Ryou didn't realize that he'd been holding his breath until Kaiba spoke again.

"What the hell happened?"

Since the brunette hadn't released his hand, Ryou made no attempt to pull it back, simply keeping his wrist loose as Seto stared at his skin.

"That was actually the spirit's doing," the Brit answered softly, and Seto's eyes rose to meet his. Ryou didn't know if he even realized that he was still trapping Ryou's hand with the soft pressure of his forefinger and thumb. "Are you familiar with the Monster World RPG at all?"

"Superficially. I've never played it before."

"It's a long story, but I guess the short version is that the Spirit of the Millennium Ring had pulled us all into a Shadow Game, and while he was in control, he impaled my hand on the turret of the castle."

"Hm." Seto released Ryou's hand, and the flustered teen pulled it back to himself, tugging off his other glove and setting it aside too. "Dare I ask why?"

"You see, that's the long story…"

"We have time." Kaiba's expression was calm as he sipped his coffee again, eyes fixed on his companion.

Ryou couldn't think of a good reason for why he shouldn't satisy the CEO's curiosity.

"It wasn't long after I moved to Domino and transfered to the high school here…"

If he was going to tell the story, he was going to tell it in its entirety, because otherwise, it didn't make complete sense. He tried to move forward, but Kaiba was keen and questioned everything.

"Why were you transferring?"

"Why were you moving?"

"When did you receive the ring?"

"My father brought it back from one of his trips to Egypt. He said he felt I was destined to have it." Ryou shrugged as he stared down into his tea and took an experimental sip. "The merchant said that it had something to do with Duel Monsters, but that didn't make any sense to him, since the game was new and the ring was clearly ancient. It didn't make any sense to me either until I came here…"

Ryou was quiet for a few moments, stuck in his own thoughts as he relieved those events in a flash of memory and emotion. Kaiba simply watched him with those bright eyes that seemed fixated on his former classmate. You couldn't tell just by looking at him how much Kaiba was seeing. He saw everything, though, absorbed every slight twitch and turn as he interpreted a myriad of micro-expressions to determine what made Ryou silent.

By the end of the hour, Kaiba had incidentally teased out much of Ryou's life story. For some reason, Ryou seemed to be the only person outside the office who wasn't minorly terrified of speaking to him. Yugi and his inner circle of friends never gave him the time of day, though he couldn't blame them. Duke had spoken to him-heck, they'd done more than that-but they'd both been buzzed and it wasn't the same. Seeking a sexual partner to satisfy biological needs was one thing. Repeatedly meeting him so they could just talk one on one about anything that mattered to them-that was deliberate homosocial bonding. That was…

"Friendship always mattered to them. Yugi later told me that when he solved the Millennium Puzzle, he wished for true friends. I had wished for the same thing, and guess the spirit granted it, in his own way…" Ryou sighed looking very troubled indeed. He turned his gaze out the window and watched cars pass without truly seeing their passengers. "The difference between good and evil is so clear, conceptually, but when you look for it in real life…"

"Everything is grey," Kaiba said, finishing Ryou's thought as he turned to look out the window too. "Everything's grey, and nothing's clear at all."


	14. Health

**Author Notes:** For the sake of clarity, I just wanted to tell you that this does _not_ happen on the same day that the previous chapter ended on. It happens later. Don't ask me how much later, because I don't know yet. ^_^'

* * *

After work, Duke went to the grocery store to buy a few things he needed. When he came home, took off his coat, and toed off his shoes at the front door, he turned towards the living area and saw something that made him stop in his tracks. Ryou was laying face-down on the couch, his face buried in a throw pillow to muffle his sobs as he cried. Duke bit his lip anxiously, unsure of what he ought to do or say. He set the grocery bag on the floor as quietly as the cellophane would allow him to, then walked over to the couch. He perched on the edge, by Ryou's side, turning a little to face his friend as he placed his hand on Ryou's upper back and took a deep breath.

"Let me guess, you just found out that Bella picks Edward?"

Ryou's sounds increased, but Duke couldn't tell if he'd made him laugh or just cry harder.

"I know, it's terrible," Duke lamented, shaking his head sadly. "Team Jacob all the way."

Ryou lifted his head, supporting himself on his forearms, and this time his weak, teary laugh was easily identifiable. It made Duke smile a little, and he shifted off the couch so that he could kneel on the floor and face Ryou directly.

"What's wrong, Ry?"

His flatmate heaved a heavy sigh. "Just... too many bad things happening on one day. It would take too long to explain it all." He started wiping his cheeks with his hands, which only succeeded in spreading his tears. "Not even important things, just..." He trailed off, looking like he was going to start crying again.

"If it bothered you, then it's important," Duke said, giving Ryou a little smile. "You don't have to tell me, but if you want to talk, I'm right here. Is there anything I can do?"

Ryou shrugged weakly as he rubbed his puffy eyes, unable to think of anything that could make him feel better.

Duke thought for a moment, then gently asked, "Would a hug help?"

With a slight smile, Ryou nodded and started to sit up. Duke stood and sat beside Ryou, just as he was starting to sit up fully. Duke put his arms around Ryou and pulled him back down, though, letting him lay against Duke's chest as the dark-haired teen lifted his legs onto the couch too and let them run parallel to Ryou's. Duke tugged the throw-blanket off the back of the couch and haphazardly spread it out over them, then put his arms around Ryou again, rubbing his back as Ryou tried to calm himself down.

Duke had to bite his tongue to keep himself from saying things better left unsaid. He was tempted to come out this very second and love Ryou, if only to ease Ryou's grieved heart and troubled mind and give him a reason to smile. It wasn't the right time to do that, though, and there was always the chance that his proclamation would upset his friend and do more harm than good. So for now, Duke just held him and offered what assurance he could with his presence alone. Ryou's sobbing had ceased, but he still stayed where he was, laying on Duke with his hands tentatively resting on his friend's ribs, his cheek pressed against the soft black fabric concealing Duke's chest. He attempted to breathe deeply, but it sounded more like a shuddering gasp.

"It's going to be okay," Duke murmured, fighting the urge to kiss the top of Ryou's head where his fluffy white hair was mussed and still smelling like his fragrant shampoo. What was the scent called again? Dusk? Moonlight something? They'd lived together long enough for Duke to know that Ryou tended to pick up a new brand of shampoo each time he ran out, just out of curiosity, but he hoped that Ryou bought this one again.

"I know, it's just..." Ryou's eyes watered again, and he pressed closer to Duke. "It was just one of those days, you know?" he whispered. "One of those days when all I can think of is everything I've ever done wrong and every _mistake_ I never wanted to remember, and nothing seems to go right, and no matter _what_ I do, I can't seem to forget, and everything I say is _wrong_ and all I _do_ is screw up." He squeezed his eyes shut, and twin tears escaped down his cheeks, only to be absorbed by Duke's shirt.

"No, I don't know," Duke answered slowly, horrified by the notion that Ryou had days like that on a regular basis. It sounded like torture. Was that what it felt like to be depressed? No wonder Ryou had days when he struggled to smile.

He slid his arms around Ryou again, hugging him tightly and lifting him up a bit as he pressed his cheek into Ryou's hair. To make their position more comfortable, Duke adjust his legs, slipping one between Ryou's so that their bodies were no longer awkwardly angled.

Duke could feel Ryou's rapid heart through his chest.

They didn't talk for a long time, just cuddled on the couch as the apartment turned blue with the light of dusk. Soon, it was dark, and Duke was tempted to get up and turn the lights on, but he didn't want to move away until Ryou did. He wanted to stay like this for as long as Ryou let him. He rubbed little circles with his thumbs over Ryou's back and sides through the fuzz of the blanket. At some point, Ryou's toes got cold and he pressed his sock-covered feet into the crack between the couch cushions. When Duke noticed this, he used his own feet to pull the blanket down over their lowest extremities.

"No one's ever called me Ry before."

Duke opened his eyes and looked down at his friend with a smile.

"I just don't get nicknames."

"Am I allowed to call you that again?"

Ryou lifted his head and smiled. "I think I would like that."

Duke smiled back, and Ryou settled down against him once more. After a little while he asked, "Are you hungry?"

No answer. Ryou had fallen asleep. Duke shimmied a little lower on the couch so that he was no longer propped against the arm-rest and was lying flat. Laying together like that, Duke dozed off for a bit too. Duke woke up a couple hours later, the room completely dark, but Ryou was still asleep, his head lolling against Duke's shoulder with his pale face upturned. Duke wanted nothing more in that moment than to caress that angelic face and kiss Ryou into wakefulness. By some miracle of willpower, he managed not to.

"Ryou, wake up. It's getting dark." Duke nudged his friend gently and called his name again, then Ryou started to stir. "Wake up, sleepyhead."

"What time is it?" His voice was thick with sleep as he lifted his head to look around and take in the change in lighting.

"After nine, I'd guess."

"Ach, I'm so sorry. I'm sure you had more important thi—"

"No, Ryou," Duke interrupted, lifting a hand to Ryou's cheek and stopping him short. "You're more important than any mere _thing_."

"Thank you," the Brit murmured, unsure of what else he should say.

"Are you hungry?"

"Not... really," Ryou murmured, stiff as Duke's hand remained on his cheek.

"I'm going to make you food anyways." Duke dropped his hand and started to shift, so Ryou rolled off of him, falling onto his back on the couch as Duke started turning on the lights. "How do Hot Pockets sound?"

"That sounds great." Ryou smiled; he loved Hot Pockets, and had probably eaten too many of them back in high school. Then again, having frozen meals on hand was quite convenient; sometimes he'd have fresher food on hand, and then he'd wake up without knowing how much time had passed, and they'd gone bad. After a while, he'd given up and settled on frozen meals, canned soups, and Ramen noodles.

"Did you get all of your homework done before I came home?"

"I got a lot of it done. I'll have time to finish it tomorrow morning, if I work fast and if I work for an hour or two tonight."

"I think you should just go to bed now, actually. You're clearly exhausted, and I don't think you'll be able to get much done even if you try."

Ryou hummed a sigh, rubbing his eyes and dropping his face onto the back of the couch, wanting to look away from the bright lights.

"I'm far more concerned about your health than I am about your grades, Ry." Duke glanced back at Ryou with serious eyes just before the microwave beeped. "You should be too."

* * *

"Sorry I'm late," Ryou said as he sat down across from Kaiba, sounding rushed and unhappy. "I had to take care of some things, and it took longer than expected."

"I understand." Kaiba sipped his coffee calmly as Ryou, still looking frazzled, set down his tea and tried to mentally collect himself. After a moment, though, he seemed to give up on the idea and instead dropped his head to the table. He still had one hand on his cup, mostly to keep it from colliding with his head, and let out a low groan.

"Why do you get the same tea each time?" Seto asked curiously, graciously refusing to comment on Ryou's posture.

"Because I know that I like it," Ryou answered, voice muffled, then lifted his head a few moments later and propped his chin in his hand, gazing down at the steaming cup he still held. "And if I know I like it, why try something different and risk disliking something new?"

"They say there's no gain without risk," Kaiba commented nonchalantly.

"I've never understood that," Ryou grumbled, rubbing at his eyes for a moment before resuming his previous pose. "You see it on TV or in movies, when someone's trying to move on after a breakup or something, and their friend tells them that, _of course_ they might be dumped again, or it might not work out with whatever new person they find, but that risk is necessary for them to find that happiness they used to have. And _somehow_ , that makes the person so motivated to go out and try again, but I don't know how that's _at all_ comforting or encouraging. If they tried the first time, and it hurt them instead of helping them, and they try again, and they still get hurt, why should they keep trying? They never really justify the risked pain, and I have yet to hear anyone give a decent explanation of it! I'm sorry, now I'm just ranting." Ryou sighed and let his eyelids droop; it was so hard to keep his eyes open. "I'm so tired."

"One moment." Kaiba abandoned his own coffee at the table and went back to the counter, while Ryou let his eyes rest for a few moments. The sound of something slamming onto the table made him open his eyes again. Kaiba slid the new cup across the table and let it sit in front of Ryou as he sat down again.

"Um, what is it?" The college student blinked in confusion.

"Coffee. You need it." Kaiba sipped his own coffee and watched Ryou curiously, wondering if he'd accept the highly caffeinated beverage.

"I-I don't really drink coffee," Ryou said hesitantly, wrapping both hands around the hot cup anyways. "Thank you, though."

It was a small, which Kaiba had gotten more out of consideration than stinginess. Ryou already had tea, after all. He didn't want him to be walking back to classes with two unfinished drinks.

"If you're tired, then you should drink it."

"I don't know..." Ryou continued to hesitate, biting his lip nervously. "I tend to get shaky when I have caffeine in large doses. It's worse when I haven't eaten in a while. I _did_ eat lunch, because I have to—I-I'm somewhat hypoglycemic," Ryou explained, feeling a little bit embarrassed, but as usual, Kaiba didn't seem to care either way, and that always made Ryou feel a bit better. "So if I go too long without eating, I might pass out. Besides, if I don't eat lunch, Duke gets mad at me." Ryou smiled a little as he said that, though, so he obviously didn't fear Duke's anger. "Still, I didn't eat too much at lunch, and I'm just worried that..." Ryou chewed on his bottom lip again while Kaiba silently watched him puzzle through the problem out loud.

"What do you have to lose?" the executive asked smoothly while the college student struggled to sort his own thoughts.

Brown eyes flicked up to meet blue, and after a few blinks, Ryou looked down again and took a tentative sip of coffee.

* * *

Later that evening, Seto received a text from a numbered that wasn't registered in his contacts. He was tempted to delete it before reading it, but out of curiosity, read it anyways:

 **Kaiba, this is Duke. Next time you give my roommate coffee, I'm going to your house and giving Mokuba a double shot of espresso.**

 _What do you have against coffee?_ Seto texted back, intrigued.

 **I have nothing against coffee, but you're not the one handling Ryou on caffeine.**

 _Is he really that bad?_

 **You have no idea. O_O He's wilder than a sugar-loaded ten-year old.**

Seto allowed himself a small chuckle as he looked at his phone, finding it impossible to imagine Ryou Bakura as anything but tame and demure, then added Duke to his contacts. He was putting his phone down again when he received another text.

 **He's going to keep me up half the night. Maybe I'll decide to return the favor so you know how it feels.**

 _Are you suggesting doping my brother with caffeine regardless of a repeated coffee incident, or are you suggesting keeping ME up half the night?_

 **I'm sure we'd both enjoy the latter far more _._**

 _I'm free when you are._

 **Next Thursday?**

 _Be at my house at 10._

 **Wouldn't miss it for the world.**

"Duke. Duke. Duke. Who are you texting, Duke? Duke. Duke. Duke. Ow!"

Duke looked up from his phone to see that Ryou had hit hit head on the padded armrest of the couch. His socks must have slipped on the fabric while he was jumping on it, acting rather childish, though it was quite amusing. Duke walked over to the couch and leaned down over his roommate, who was rubbing his head where he'd bumped it.

"You called me?" the dark-haired one asked cheekily.

"Hi." Ryou burst into a fit of flushed giggles, and Duke pat his friend's bumped head gently.

"I can't wait until you crash from the high," Duke sighed with a shake of his head. "No more coffee for you, Ry. Next time, just say no."


	15. Dancing

"You've seemed kind of down lately, Ryou," Kally commented to her classmate as she started packing up her books at the end of Latin class. "Is everything okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine," Ryou answered with a strained smile. "Just a bit... heartsick."

"You poor dear." Kally smiled pityingly. "Do you have any plans for tonight?"

"Um, no, I just planned on going home, doing homework, the usual stuff." That also included playing video games or watching Netflix, depending on his mood.

"You should come to swing club tonight. I'm sure that'll cheer you up."

"I don't know." Ryou blushed a little. "I don't really dance."

"You'll get to meet new people!"

"I'm awkward around strangers."

"You'll have so much fun that you won't be able to remember whoever it is you're hung up on."

"But what if I make a fool of myself?" Ryou could feel his mouth start to go dry as his anxiety kicked in. He hated the idea of going to a place filled with people he didn't know but would have to socialize with lest he end up sitting on the sidelines like the social outcast he was. He didn't feel comfortable at social events on campus, but now that he'd gone and fallen for Duke, he wasn't quite as comfortable at home as he would like to be. Going home alone, though, was a more daunting thing than he cared to deal with right now. While he appreciated solitude, being absolutely alone when he'd had a bad day always did him more harm than good.

"Come on, Ryou," Kally pleaded with a slight pout. "I need a new dance partner, and you know my boyfriend only approves of himself or other girls when it comes to my dance partners."

"Then why would he approve of me?"

"He won't be jealous of you, because I told him that you're gay."

Fair enough.

"Come on, please? For me? Just come for a half hour and if you don't like it, you can leave, okay?"

"Okay," Ryou said, yielding to his classmate's request. She was a nice girl, and he could survive a half hour.

* * *

When Duke showed up at the Kaiba mansion, his body was humming with electricity. He'd been in need for far too long, and Kaiba was _quite_ an attractive man. He'd told Ryou that he was meeting a friend tonight and that he'd be out late, both of which were true statements. Ryou hadn't asked any further questions, so he'd left it at that.

Duke used the knocker on the grand front doors and waited. He didn't have long to wait before Kaiba himself opened the door and let him inside. He looked as if he hadn't done much to change out of his work clothes, only having removed his tie and suit jacket since coming home. His dark pine shirt was open at the neck and the wrists, the dark hue a delicious contrast to his fair skin. Duke couldn't help but note that he wasn't quite as pale as Ryou, though his skin tone declared that he favored the indoors.

After closing the door behind his guest without a word of formal greeting, Kaiba commented coolly, "This is strictly casual."

"Absolutely." Duke smiled, projecting every ounce of charm he possessed as he placed a hand on one delicate hip and sank into a pose that flattered his figure. "This is purely recreational sex between two objectively attractive human beings."

Kaiba smirked as if he were holding back a laugh. If he were anyone else, he probably would have chuckled. Duke was about to make the first move when Kaiba turned and instructed, "Come." Intrigued, Duke followed him to his room without a word. Kaiba opened the door, Duke followed him in. As Kaiba was locking it, though, Duke abandoned what remained of his self control.

As soon as the brunette started to turn, Duke shoved him back against the door and pulled him down into a rough, hungry kiss. For a moment, Kaiba was too surprised to respond, but only for a moment. Then it became a war, a battle for dominance, a contest to see who could stay fully clothed the longest before they broke and nearly shredded their clothes off like wild animals.

Duke would have enjoyed it more if Kaiba hadn't seemed so restrained, so aware of himself that he seemed to fear being caught on camera at any given moment. Duke was here for his own enjoyment, just like Kaiba, but Duke still tried to put the billionaire at ease. He didn't attempt anything invasive or exotic, and he kept his commentary to a minimum since speech seemed to make him uncomfortable once they began to undress.

* * *

Ryou rocked carefully from one side to the other, taking a small step each time so that that they weren't completely stationary.

"See? You're a natural." Kally grinned at him encouragingly.

"It feels weird not doing anything with my left arm." His left arm and her right were limp at their sides, their stomachs pressed together, their other arms around each others' waist, because apparently that's how you dance blues.

"You know, there's a story about blues." Her eyes sparkled with mischief. "Blues dancing was invented by Lindy Hoppers who'd go to swing exchanges and dance until three in the morning and get completely hammered. By three, they were all half-witted and couldn't do more than rock together with a drink in their hand: hence these hands being empty. Personally, I'd recommend trying it with a drink. It really changes the experience. Whattaya say?"

"Sure." Ryou didn't usually drink, since he'd never had the inclination to do so, but he was feeling open minded at the moment. Kally smirked and stalked away to the cooler at the edge of the room, only to return moments later with an open bottle of sake. They shared the drink evenly, but Ryou hadn't been prepared for how it'd rush to his head.

When the song ended, Kally returned to her boyfriend. Ryou was ready to sit on the sidelines and watch, but was pleasantly surprised when a bulky football player asked him to dance. Kally gave him two thumbs up and mouthed "good choice" as they walked out onto the floor together.

Dancing led to a little more drinking, which perpetuated the dancing until the dancing led to stairwell kisses in the shadows by the storage closet, as if they had something to hide. The taller one pushed Ryou inside, and the white-haired teen giggled.

"This is so high school," Ryou chuckled before broad hands found his waist and pulled him closer to a firm chest.

"But that makes it kinda fun, right?"

Ryou was caught up in another kiss before he could breathe, and as his body was pressed between the back of the door and the football player's body, something struck his mind and made him ache with an immediate sense of guilt. He wrenched his head away, though it was difficult, bringing the kiss to an abrupt end. The other male didn't seem bothered by it, so he let his lips fall to Ryou's neck.

"Wait," Ryou panted, pressing his hands to the other's shoulders, though the action was futile. The other didn't seem to have heard him. "Hey, stop!"

"Is something wrong?" the other asked lazily, and licked Ryou's neck with a long, slow stroke of his tongue.

"I-I just remembered that I have to be somewhere," Ryou stammered unconvincingly, still trying to push him away.

"Really?" the jock muttered dubiously, reaching for Ryou's ass and giving it a squeeze that made Ryou's pulse leap in panic. "I doubt that."

Damn. Why had Ryou been stupid enough to think that this was a good idea? He just wanted out, but he didn't know how to put an end to this. He wasn't strong enough to push him away or overpower him, and he wasn't assertive enough to make him stop by force of will. What did that leave him with?

"I-I only just remembered. I-It's really important." Ryou's face was flushed the deepest shade of red it had ever been. "I need to get going..."

"Are you sure?" the other leered in disbelief, still holding Ryou with an uncomfortable amount of force.

"I'm sure; let go of me!" Ryou felt that if he had to stay here much longer, he'd break into a fit of hysterics. Something about this—the way he was pushed and grabbed and licked—was scaring him. "I changed my mind, let go!" Although his pleas were insistent and his voice pitched up into a whine, his volume was still low. If someone outside overheard them, he'd be royally mortified. The other was more drunk than he, so he managed to shove him away and turn the doorknob behind him, allowing him a quick escape. He darted down the stairs, taking them two at a time until his feet tingled from absorbing the shock of each little leap. He went down two flights and ran down the long hallway in the basement that connected this building to the other, wanting to put as much space between him and his would-be one-night-stand-partner. It wasn't until he'd gone upstairs and taken refuge in the restroom to cool himself down did Ryou start to realize why he'd gotten so bothered so suddenly.

Bakura had once touched him like that.

Ryou braced himself against the edge of the sink, breathing heavily as he lifted his eyes to his reflection.

"Why won't you leave me alone?" he demanded of the glass image, glaring. "Why won't you just _leave me alone_? When will you get the _hell_ out of my life?" He didn't receive an answer, but he didn't expect one.

Bakura never answered him back then either.

* * *

When Duke got home, the apartment was dark and quiet and cold. It didn't look any different than it had been when he left it that morning, which was strange, because usually at least one thing had been changed by Ryou's lounging. As he slipped off his shoes by the door, Duke concluded that Ryou'd spent the evening elsewhere and was still out.

As he walked towards his room, he pulled out his cell phone and started scrolling through his contacts so that he could text or call him—he hadn't decided which yet—when he heard the sound of crying. Duke stood in the place, and it only took a few moments to determine that the sound was coming from Ryou's room.

Duke approached the door and lay his hand on the doorknob, testing it gently. It was locked. There was an unspoken agreement that they respected locked doors, but Duke was still tempted to knock so he could speak to Ryou and see what was wrong. Duke stood at the door, hand on the knob, forehead pressed against the wood, for an indefinite length of time. He stood and listened, trying to decide what to do. He began to wonder if he shouldn't have stayed home this evening; maybe he could have prevented Ryou's tears somehow? After a while, the sound of sobbing stopped, and Duke moved away from the door to finally go to bed. It was pointless trying to think of what might have been or what he could have changed. Better to just deal with things as they were than wonder or regret.

* * *

 **Author Notes** : There was a version of this chapter where Ryou _did_ have a one night stand and was drunk on the floor when Duke came home, but I already let them have one drunk kiss; they don't need another.


	16. Blues

Duke saw Kaiba again six weeks later as the city slipped into winter, and Ryou kept meeting him at the cafe. Ryou, at Kaiba's request, stayed over at the mansion a few nights now and then when he was traveling on business and didn't want Mokuba staying alone with only the staff. Duke maintained his periodic affair with Kaiba, Ryou continued attending therapy on a weekly basis, and Kaiba worked. A lot.

* * *

 **DECEMBER** :

"I hope you and Mokuba enjoy yourselves in New York," Ryou said as he prepared to part ways at the entrance to his office building. "Since I won't be seeing you two again during the holidays, tell Mokuba Merry Christmas for me."

"Thank you, and I will." Kaiba nodded in acknowledgement, and was about to wish his friend well when Ryou turned and pulled something out of his pocket.

"Merry Christmas, Kaiba," Ryou said with a sweet smile, arms extended out to the brunette with an envelope clasped in his hands. Kaiba was startled, and it took him a moment to process the fact that he was being given a Christmas card.

"You shouldn't have." Seto gingerly took the green envelope from his friends hands.

"It's not like I expect anything in return." Ryou's cheeks were pinched pink, either from the stinging wind or a bit of embarrassment at thinking that he could give Seto Kaiba something he didn't already have. "I just thought that you looked kind of down lately, and"—Ryou shrugged with one shoulder—"I thought it might try to cheer you up."

"Thank you, Ryou." They'd switched to a first name basis just last week, and it still made Ryou's toes curl when mas, heard his name spoken in Kaiba's voice.

"You're welcome"—Ryou hesitated slightly—"Seto." He turned and began to walk away, but a familiar voice made him stop.

"Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Seto," Ryou said with a smile over his shoulder before turning to go back to school where his afternoon classes awaited him.

Kaiba was sitting at home at his office desk when he finally opened the Christmas card. He'd saved it until then so that he could treat himself when he got home—or so he told himself. Maybe he just liked having something to look forward to. The Christmas card happened to contain a single serving of tea. He hadn't known that chocolate tea was a thing, or that it even came in a peppermint variety, but he ordered a servant to bring him a cup of it anyways. He ended up liking it more than he thought he would. It was just chocolaty enough to seem indulgent without being sweet enough to be sickening.

Of course he could have bought it for himself, but he never would have, and this tea being hand selected for him by a friend gave it a value that couldn't have been measured with money.

* * *

 **JANUARY** :

"What are you watching?"

"It's called _Roland_ ," Ryou answered from his fuzzy cocoon on the couch. Duke slipped off his shoes and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on for hot chocolate. "Apparently some alumni from my uni made it a few years ago."

"What's it about?" Duke took out a second mug and a second packet of cocoa mix.

"It's a film noir detective mystery," Ryou answered, eyes glued to the black and white footage of the fedora-wearing detective strolling down the center of an empty, snowy street. "The entire thing was shot in Domino, written by students, and produced without any outside help."

"Is it any good?" Duke asked as he spied on the TV screen from behind the island in the kitchen.

"The acting leaves a little something to be desired but it's quite good considering that it was self-funded." Ryou ate a spoonful of something from the bowl in his lap. "It's split into six forty-five-minute episodes, and the artistry of them is just gorgeous. They start each one with a silent montage with a violin solo and the protagonist reading a beautiful poem, and he has this _amazing_ voice."

"Sounds like you're a fan," Duke teased playfully, pouring the hot water.

"It's purely from an artistic standpoint," Ryou defended, a little flustered. "But it _does_ sound gorgeous. Oh, thanks." He took a small sip from the mug that Duke handed him as he sat next to him on the couch.

"Can I watch it with you?"

"Sure, I'll restart the episode."

"Oh, you don't have to do that," Duke started to say, pulling at the corner of Ryou's blanket so that it covered his legs and warded off the chill.

"It's fine, I want to," Ryou assured as he picked up the remote and started to rewind. "Besides, I love the intro, so I don't mind watching it again."

"What are you eating, by the way?" Duke was peering into Ryou's bowl curiously.

"It's pudding. Or at least, it's the lazy college student version of pudding."

"Did you… microwave a banana?"

"Hey, I added peanut butter and honey too."

"Is it any good?"

"I like to think so." Ryou pushed play.

"Which episode is this?"

"It's the second, but I can fill you in on what happened in the first one. So, the protagonist, Roland, is a detective, and he's got this hero complex, you see, so when the mafia starts taking over his town…"

Duke enjoyed the production, in no small part because Ryou enjoyed it. By the time it was over, Ryou was snuggled up under Duke's arm and half asleep.

* * *

 **FEBRUARY** :

 _Valentines Day is such a racket_ , Kaiba mentally growled to himself after slamming his office door shut. He'd just overheard his assistant chatting to some other low level employee about someone in IT who'd proposed to his girlfriend in programming. Stories like that pissed him off. Other people's happiness had always made him unhappy.

 _Valentines Day is a commercial holiday invented to suck as much guilt-money out of the consumer as possible. I'd rather celebrate the Valentines Day Massacre by going to the shooting range with a machine gun._

This was also one of those holidays when people posted some of the most obnoxious things on social media. He didn't have a private Facebook account, but his company did, so if he was ever in the mood to be irritated, he could take a minute to access the account and cruise the feed. Kaiba didn't require a Facebook food in order to be irritated; however, Ryou found social media that day to be just as disheartening as the young executive did.

Ryou'd finished his homework at the library, so he came home to his shared apartment early in the day and connected his phone to the new stereo system Duke had set up. Ryou wasn't the kind to listen to his music outside of headphones, but it was cumbersome to tangle with the wires when folding laundry, which was his current task. It sounded great, and since Duke was working downstairs in the shop, he wasn't worried about bothering anyone else, giving him the freedom to sing along.

"You say to me now that you're sorry/ And like a fool I think it's true/ Well it's the same old song, with another year gone/ Singin' those old New Year Blues," Ryou sang along as he sorted their dirty laundry on the now-clean floor (he'd swept earlier). "Well I'm so low and broken-hearted/ Cause you and I were through before we started/ I guess it's out with the old man and in with the new/ Singin' those old New Year Blues."

He'd begun to favor the blues genre after the one night he'd given dancing a try. The only good thing to come out of that night was discovering a new music genre that he liked.

* * *

 **MARCH:**

 _"Hey, are you okay?" Duke called as he came to a stop and turned to look back at Ryou, who'd come to a sudden halt. He turned just in time to see Ryou collapse onto the leafy grass of the park they were passing on their early morning run. Duke went over to him and knelt beside him, concerned. "Ryou, are you okay?" His roommate was gasping for air as he lay on his back, a dazed expression on his flushed face._

 _"I... just... can't... breathe..." Each word was punctuated by a rough gasp, and Duke placed a hand on Ryou's stomach, hoping it would calm him._

 _"Just relax and focus on taking slow breaths, nice and easy." Duke continued to murmur encouragement until Ryou was breathing normally again. "You don't have asthma, do you?"_

 _"No, at least, not as far as I'm aware," Ryou answered, clearly embarrassed. "I've just never been able to breathe easily in cold weather like this."_

 _"Maybe you'll get better with some practice." Duke lifted a hand to Ryou's sweaty forehead and pushed back the white bangs that were sticking to his skin. Ryou's cheeks seemed to darken at the touch, and Duke leaned forward over him further, eyes falling to Ryou's lips._

 _"I'm sorry for slowing you down."_

 _"Don't apologize." Duke was leaning closer to his friend, eyes trained on his pink lips. He hesitated, then closed the distance between them, too impatient to wait any longer. Ryou blossomed for him, and Duke slid his hand from Ryou's stomach to his side, pulling him closer. He slid his hand under Ryou's shirt, stroking his stomach and reaching up wards towards his chest. Ryou squirmed under him, and Duke pulled back. Dead leaves were stuck in the soft white hair that pooled around his head and goosebumps were rising over his skin from the autumn chill and the cold earth beneath them. Seeing him like that, flustered and wanting and desirable as ever, drove Duke over the edge. He fell to the earth and seized Ryou's shirt in his hands, rolling them over so that he could lay atop him. Ryou's legs wrapped around his waist, hiking up his sides as Duke dominated a rough, hungry kiss._

 _Then the struggle to undress without releasing each other began. Duke had to roll them over again so that he could shove Ryou's shirt up and yank it off over his head. Duke was trying to shove down his own pants while Ryou squirmed until his own were half-way down his thighs. They were clumsily tangled together, but this amount of exposure was just enough. Instinct drove them to start rocking their hips together, and before they even knew what they were doing, they were humping each other like animals in heat._

 _"Duke!" Ryou cried, gripping his partner's shoulders until his fingernails dug into his skin. They were both panting hard, sweating a bit, and painfully close._

The distant sound of morning radio became more clear as Duke opened his eyes with a reluctant groan. _Damn, not again_... One hand snaked down to his boxers and seized his throbbing member. A squeeze, a few jerks, and he slumped down into his bed, face buried in fabric to silence his moan. It wasn't the most satisfying way to get off, but it worked.

He lifted his face from his pillow and rubbed his eyes with his clean hand, rolling over to lay on his back for a moment before sitting up properly. He'd awoken from his dream sprawled across his bed, his sheets an awful wreck that he wasn't in the mood to straighten out before going to work.

"Duke, it's time to wake up!" Ryou called from the main living area. "Your alarm's been going off for half an hour!"

"I'm up!" he called back, slapping the snooze button of his alarm clock.

Before anything else, he needed to take a shower.

* * *

 **Author Notes** : "New Year Blues" is by Glenn Crytzer and his Syncopators (ft. Meschiya Lake).


	17. Resistance

**APRIL:**

 _Dear Amane,_

 _Statistics of Social Sciences remains my most difficult class of the semester; too often I think I've got it all figured out, only to get my homework back and see that I was all wrong about it. I love studying psychology and I want to make a career of it, but I don't think I want to be a researcher or professor. I can understand the statistics when I read published studies, but I don't want to be the one crunching the numbers. At the same time, there are some correlations that I'm curious about and that I would like for someone to conduct a study about. I have plenty of time to make up my mind, I suppose._

 _Even so, I still find myself plagued with an interest in ancient civilizations, especially in the Mediterranean and Mesopatamian areas: Greeks, Trojans, Romans, Latins, Etruscans, Carthaginians, Egyptians, Macedonians, Babylonians, Persians, Canaanites, and all the rest. It's fascinating. Maybe I'll look into getting an archaeology degree too. Is there a way for Archaeology and Psychology to work together? I hope so._

 _Duke is still as charming as ever, achingly so. I'm not sure if I can go on like this for much longer. He's too much of a temptation; it hurts to be so close to something you want, but can't have. If he keeps walking around the apartment shirtless, I'll have to start hiding in my room all the time. He was a heartthrob back in high-school too, except back then he wasn't_ my _heartthrob._

 _Kaiba seems so different now than he used to be. I don't think anyone ever gives him a fair chance; he can be so kind if only people wouldn't write him off as being awful. He's changed, Amane. I never believed him to be a bad person; he put his own soul at stake in Duelist Kingdom for the sake of his little brother, and that has to count for something. There was always goodness in him, but he's gentle now, too. Mokuba agrees with me that his brother's doing better than ever. I'm so glad to know that, and I'm glad that I can help him too. We all need help every now and then._

 _Spring is in full swing and the weather is lovely, though still a little chilly every now and then. The cherry blossoms are out, and I've taken lots of nice pictures for you. I know you wanted to see them yourself one day in person. I'm sorry you never had the chance._

 _I still love you dearly and wish you were here. You're in a better place now, though, so I wouldn't dare try to pull you back out of heaven. Rest in peace._

 _Love your big brother,  
Ryou Bakura_

Ryou carefully folded his letter and slid it into the envelope, sealing it as usual before writing his name and address in the top left-hand corner on the back of the envelope, accompanied by today's date. Then he sighed a little and placed the letter in a shoebox holding some of his other, recent letters. He'd been writing his little sister letters for years now, and maybe it was childish for him to continue, but he missed her too much to stop. Writing them made him feel better, if nothing else.

* * *

 **MAY:**

"How was therapy today?" Duke asked as he removed ingredients from the fridge and placed them on the counter behind him. Then he knelt down to get the large skillet from the cabinet.

"Oh, um, I didn't go." Ryou looked oddly pleased as he said that, and his next words explained why. "Last week was my last one."

"Really? That's great!" Duke's enthusiasm made Ryou blush. "Why didn't you tell me? This is cause for celebration!"

"It's not _that_ big a deal," Ryou murmured bashfully, fidgeting with the corner of his textbook.

"Once I get the stir-fry cooking, I'm going to dash out and buy you a surprise."

"You don't need to do that—" Ryou interrupted hastily, not wanting to cause a fuss.

"You don't mind watching the stove while I'm out, do you?" Duke continued with a calm smile. He wouldn't let Ryou play it off as no big deal. Achieving a state of steady, calm contentment after spending so much of his life anxious and unhappy was a milestone and worth the attention Duke wanted to give it.

"Of course not." Ryou smiled gratefully, the expression looking quite at home on him.

A half hour later, Duke was serving dinner—teriyaki stir-fry over rice—for both of them, his surprise in the fridge. After dinner, Ryou insisted doing the dishes, and Duke prepared a pyramid of cream puffs for the both of them. He warmed some chocolate fudge sauce in a small pot, then transferred it to a wide bowl for dipping after drizzling some over the mound of profiteroles. He set down the canister of whipped cream next to them as well, and just as Ryou was drying his hands on a towel next to the sink, Duke clapped his hand over Ryou's eyes.

"Hey!"

"Are you ready for your surprise?" Duke asked eagerly, his voice sending a little thrill down Ryou's spine all the way to his toes.

"Yes."

Duke guided Ryou over to the kitchen island, then uncovered his eyes.

"Surprise!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air as Ryou gasped with pleasure and clasped his hands together before his chest, taking such plain delight in something so simple.

"They're shaped like a tetrahedron," Ryou observed with starry eyes. "I love tetrahedrons!" Duke burst out laughing and threw his arms around his flatmate.

"You're such a nerd," he teased, nuzzling into Ryou's neck—against his better judgment. The smell of Ryou's coconut milk shampoo tickled his nose and made him immediately think of tropical kisses and sex on the beach and dancing around campfires drinking rum until they got dizzy and fell down in the sand, incessantly quoting _Pirates of the_ _Caribbean_ until they talked themselves into oblivion. Duke swallowed hard and pulled away, trying to keep a clear head. He really needed to get his fantasies under control.

"These are _so_ good!" Ryou exclaimed around the puff he was chewing. He'd used his fingers to pop one into his mouth, but now he was reaching for a fork so that he could impale one and dip it into the bowl of hot fudge. The dripping pastry went straight from the bowl to his mouth, a small stray lock of silvery white hair sticking to the chocolate-smothered ball for a moment as it brushed past. Ryou's mouth opened wide to eat it in one bite, and Duke couldn't help that he was staring as he did so. The tip of his tongue flicked out to catch a drop of chocolate on his lip before he resumed chewing his dessert. Ryou started when Duke's finger and thumb pinched a small strand of hair, gently pulling at it. He cast a sidelong glance at Duke, feeling acutely embarrassed.

"You had chocolate in your hair," Duke explained, his voice huskier than he wanted it to be. For a few moments, all they could do was stare at each other with flushed cheeks and shallow breaths. When had Duke moved so close to him? When had Ryou gotten so beautiful? It took all of Duke's self-control to not kiss him right there and then, and instead move away to get a fork for himself so he could share in the bountiful dessert.

* * *

"I'm done with my exams!" Ryou exclaimed as he burst into the apartment the next evening, looking utterly elated. It was past dinner-time—he'd eaten on campus with some of his classmates—so Duke had already eaten his own dinner of leftovers. "I _almost_ didn't finish my last essay in time, but I did, and now everything's _done_!" He dropped his backpack to the floor and took off his shoes as Duke came out of his bedroom, dressed comfortably in skinny sweats and a loose t-shirt. His hair was down instead of in his usual ponytail. He opened his mouth to congratulate his friend when he stopped short.

"What happened?"

Ryou looked at Duke in confusion, then followed Duke's gaze to his jeans. His left pants-leg from the knee down was stained with a dark red, almost black, stripe. It was undoubtedly blood, but its presence there surprised Ryou as much as it did Duke.

"Oh, I didn't notice that."

"How do you not—Okay, nevermind." Duke had learned not to question things like that. "Come on, I'll help you clean up." Ryou sheepishly followed him to the bathroom. He started trying to roll up the pant of his jeans while Duke looked for the band-aids in the closet.

"I don't think I can roll these up far enough," Ryou fretted.

"Just take them off, then," Duke remarked casually, his face hidden from Ryou's view. "The sooner we can get them in some hot water, the better, or else they might be too stained to wear again."

Ryou hesitated, hands hovering over the button of his jeans before he gave in to common sense. He slipped out of his dark-wash jeans and turned on the sink tap, waiting a few moments for the hot water to start flowing before stopping the sink and stuffing the pant leg in under the flow of hot water, rubbing the fabric with his hands as the blood billowed in pink plumes from the denim.

"So, any idea how that happened?" Duke asked, still sounding calm as he dug around a black bin of medical supplies with a dissatisfied frown. He'd found the antibac, but where were the band-aids? Surely they still had some left?

"I do remember tripping over something on my way off campus, and I did fall and hit the ground kind of hard with my knees. I might have hit a rock or a sharp tree root or something." This wasn't Ryou's first time getting accidentally hurt and then not knowing what had caused the injury, but usually it was an annoying bruise on his elbow or paper-cut on his pinky that he couldn't explain, not something this significant.

"Try to be more careful, okay? I don't want you to get seriously hurt."

"I'll try." When the sink was full of hot water, Ryou turned off the tap and dried his hands, letting his pants soak and hoping that would be enough .

"I think we're out of band-aids," Duke sighed, closing the closet door. "So we'll have to use gauze." He tried hard not to let his eyes stray as Ryou sat reluctantly on the edge of the tub in his dark teal boxers and black button-down shirt with three-quarter sleeves. Duke put the bandages down on the floor by Ryou's feet, then wet a washcloth in the sink before kneeling in front of him and gently wiping away the blood that had stuck to his leg. He started with the smudges low on his shins and worked his way up to his knee, where the source of the blood awaited him in the form of a wide gash.

"You don't have to do that, you know," Ryou commented awkwardly after the long silence. "I could do it myself."

"It's fine; I like taking care of you." Duke smiled at Ryou to reassure him, but it only seemed to make him more uncomfortable.

"I'm not _helpless_ , though," Ryou insisted, as if he felt like he needed to prove himself. "I do _appreciate_ your help, but I—" He'd started to shift a little to make himself more comfortable on the narrow edge of the tub, but then he'd started to slip backwards. He was about to fall backwards into the tub, so he reached forward to grab onto Duke to steady himself. At the same time, Duke reached up to grab Ryou's waist with both hands.

"What did I tell you about being careful?" Duke teased, pulling Ryou forward a little so that he regained his balance.

"Er, right." Ryou averted his eyes as Duke patted his skin dry and started applying the antibacterial cream to the wound before pressing the gauze to it and fastening it with the medical tape. Ryou was trying to think about something to distract him from the way Duke's hands felt on his skin and the focused emerald gaze sparkling in his friend's eyes. He tried thinking about Kaiba first, but that didn't help at all. Those dazzling blue eyes... those ridiculously long limbs... those strong yet gentle hands...

No, thinking about Kaiba _definitely_ wasn't helping.

"Thank you for your help," Ryou said politely as Duke finished taping the bandage onto his knee. Duke seemed uncharacteristically quiet tonight, as if he were deep in thought, so when he stopped his friend from standing up, Ryou was surprised, but not nearly as surprised as he was a moment later when Duke suddenly stripped off his loose t-shirt.

"Duke, what are you—"

A hand on the back of Ryou's head stopped him as those bright eyes filled his field of vision and warm lips pressed against his. Ryou's eyes fluttered closed with a self-conscious whimper as he leaned into the kiss, the battle already lost. He'd been holding back for so long, but he couldn't take it anymore. Apparently, neither could Duke, who was now sitting back on his heels, guiding Ryou into his lap so that their lips never needed to part. Ryou now knelt straddling Duke's waist, gripping his shoulders tightly.

"You've been driving me _crazy_ , Ryou," Duke panted when they parted for air.

"This is a bad idea," the Brit murmured, even as he shifted closer, savoring the indirect friction of Duke's body on his quickly growing erection.

"Forbidden love is sexy," was Duke's playful reply before sucking Ryou into a heated kiss that had them grabbing at each other like the greedy teenagers they were.

Duke was less clumsy than Ryou, but he felt just as desperate as he hurried to unbutton Ryou's shirt. He'd wrestle the brown-eyed boy to the floor, where he lay on his back, trying to help Duke with the damnably small buttons on his black shirt.

"Screw it," Duke muttered, lifting Ryou up in his arms and standing up a little unsteadily.

Ryou clung to him as he was carried, then realized that he had prime access to Duke's neck, so he started nibbling tentatively at the skin. Encouraged by Duke's staccato moan, Ryou bit a little harder, then kissed the mark to soothe the sting. His lips were torn from the spot when Duke dropped him unceremoniously onto his bed. Ryou pushed himself into a sitting position and watched Duke devour him with his eyes: shirt only half undone, the black and teal fabrics making a lovely contrast against his paler skin, his hair a fluffed mess that fell around his shoulders in a glowing white halo.

"You're the single most beautiful person I've ever seen."

Ryou's heart stuttered. "I-I don't know what to say," he stammered honestly, his mind turned to putty by sexual instinct.

"That's okay." Duke cupped Ryou's cheek with one hand, smiling that sweet smile that made the girls back in high school swoon over him like he was sex incarnate. "You don't have to say anything at all." He kissed the corner of Ryou's mouth in an innocent gesture before pulling back again to push down his sweatpants and boxers at once. Ryou averted his eyes and straightened up a little to finish off his own shirt. He was just removing his arms from the sleeves when Duke started tugging at _his_ boxers. Ryou braced his hands on the mattress and lifted up just enough for the fabric to slide away. Then his shirt was joining his boxers on the floor and Duke was climbing onto the bed and onto Ryou. Duke's face looked as red as Ryou's felt, and when he reached down to touch his sensitive erection, it twitched in his hand, and Ryou grabbed at him again, holding on for dear life.

From that point on, their pace resumed the feverish frantic speed they'd had when making out on the tiled floor. Their lovemaking was brief and desperate, yet so terribly gratifying that neither of them were even slightly disappointed. Duke was lucid enough to clean them both off before they fell dead asleep, curled together in Duke's bed with their clothes making a messy trail from the bathroom to the bed and the bathroom light still on.

* * *

 **Author Notes** : Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, Kaiba's drinking himself to sleep crying, "Why does nobody love me~?"

I'm just kidding, he's fine. Working or sleeping or something. I'm sorry, that was a horrible joke. I just made myself sad. ;_;


	18. Hooked

Ryou's stomach twisted into knots the next morning. He'd woken up first and lay in bed worrying over the events of last night as he waited for Duke to wake up, but as soon as Duke showed signs of waking, he felt the urge to run. He just wanted to get out before Duke could see more of his skin or touch another inch of him. Before Duke had a chance to melt him even more and twist Ryou's heart around his little finger.

 _Now's_ _my_ _chance_ , Ryou thought, gripping the edge of the blanket with both hands and holding it under his chin. _I should just go right now_ , _before_ _he_ _wakes_ _up_. He still wasn't moving, though. Duke yawned loudly and began to stir.

"Good morning," Duke murmured, rolling over and reaching out for Ryou.

"Look at the time, I've gotta get to class, I should go get ready—" Ryou blurted out impulsively, starting to pull away.

"It's Saturday," Duke teased, blocking Ryou's escape wrapping around him and cuddling close. "And you already finished your exams."

"You have to get ready for work," Ryou gasped, trying to maintain composure despite Duke's hand on his thigh, kneading him into the preliminary stages of bliss.

"I've still got time." Duke placed his warm lips on Ryou's neck, making his heart skip a beat. "I always have time for you."

Duke was moving in closer, and Ryou knew that if he wanted to stop this, he needed to do it _now_.

"Wait." Ryou held Duke's shoulders firmly, hoping it would disuade his advances. By now, Duke was awake enough to see that something was off.

"What's wrong, Ry?"

Ryou swallowed hard, trying to keep a level head, even as he avoided looking directly into those emerald eyes.

"Duke… Maybe this is a stupid question, but what does this make us?" Before he even gave Duke a chance to answer, he rushed to explain himself: "I'm a really sentimental person, and I can't get involved with someone outside a relationship, or else things start getting all screwed up in my mind, and—"

Ryou stopped talking when Duke leaned closer to him and kissed him gently, wanting to put him at ease. "Ryou, I'm in love with you. I have been for months, but I didn't want to stop you from growing. You needed to stand on your own, and I didn't want to stop you."

Ryou was speechless and breathless at once. He knew he ought to say something, maybe an I-love-you-too, but his ears were too full of his own heartbeat for him to think clearly. Duke didn't seem at all bothered by this; he'd always been a man of action anyways. He kissed Ryou again, this time letting their lips linger. Duke shifted over Ryou, keeping the blankets snug around him to protect Ryou from the draft of cold air.

"You should get ready for work," Ryou murmured, starting to blush.

"I still got time." Duke kissed Ryou's neck, flicking his tongue tip across the tender skin.

"You're going to be late." Ryou couldn't resist touching Duke's chest, daring to gently pinch one hard nipple.

"I'm the boss." Duke nibbled Ryou's collarbone, and Ryou's hands coasted up Duke's shoulders to rest on his upper back.

"It's... morning." Ryou's protests were growing ever weaker the longer Duke ravished him.

"So what?"

Ryou bit his lip and tried to find in his mind a reason for them to stop. Maybe he felt uncomfortable because he'd never had a relationship before, but there was something that felt wrong about being intimate first thing in the morning. It conflicted with his structured, from-a-distance understanding of intimacy inside a romantic relationship.

"Do you really want me to stop?" Duke murmured, his lips soft against Ryou's chest. Lidded, liquid brown eyes met sparkling green ones.

"I want to say yes," Ryou answered with blunt honestly. "But… I don't know why." Ryou licked his lips, starting to feel anxious. "It's not because I don't like you, because I do. I like you a lot. I… I love you. It's just, this is going so fast, I haven't had the time to adjust, and… I don't know. It's throwing me off." Ryou's nervous breathing was quick and shallow, and Duke lifted himself up on his forearms and shifted up to kiss Ryou softly.

"Breathe with me, baby." Duke's whisper tickled his new lover's cheek. He sprinkled Ryou's face with kisses like a light misting of rain, and Ryou did the same. Pressed together as they were, it wasn't hard to breathe in sync with him. It didn't take long for Ryou to feel at ease, if a bit light-headed. Duke pulled his legs up under him and sat up, the blankets falling off his shoulders as he did. Something had caught his eye from between the curtains covering the window behind his bed. He tugged one curtain open and grinned.

"I can see Yugi's house from here." He looked down to see Ryou starting to blush. "Come on, take a peek."

"I have the same view from my window, Duke; I'm pretty sure I've seen it before." Ryou tried to roll out of bed, but Duke wasn't going to let him escape so easily.

"Oh, come on, it's a lovely view."

Ryou, weak with affection, let Duke persuade him into kneeling on the mattress in front of him, holding the headboard for balance as he peeked out the window. Duke's hands rested on the windowsill, forcing him to lean close enough that Ryou's back tickled his chest. Ryou could feel his face turning red he slightly leaned into his body; there was something nice about the way they fit, and he couldn't deny that.

"Look, there's Yugi!" Duke exclaimed suddenly, pointing towards the distant game shop below. "Hi Yugi!"

Ry squeaked and jerked backwards, bumping into Duke with enough force to knock them both down. Ryou landed on top of Duke with an "oof!" as the other started to laugh.

"I was just kidding!" Duke laughed merrily, though, thoroughly amused by Ryou's reaction.

Ryou rolled off of him and the bed, standing so he could pull his boxers on. He glanced down at Duke to see him smiling stupidly back.

"You're not mad at me, are you?"

"No, but don't make a habit of that, or you'll give me a heart attack." Ryou had picked up his crumpled shirt and was about to leave, but the small mark on Duke's neck made him stop. _He_ had done that. Duke was _his_ , and he definitely liked the sound of that. "You should get in the shower before your employees start wondering where you are, _boss_."

Duke laughed and sat up, pecking Ryou's cheek before saying, "Fine, you win." He stood and walked to the bathroom naked, Ryou's cheek growing warm from the touch of his lips. Ryou gently touched the spot where he'd been kissed, trying not to let himself be carried away by the flood of mixed feelings rising within him.

* * *

"When is Bakura coming over again?" Mokuba asked his brother as they sat together at breakfast Saturday morning. Kaiba didn't eat much for breakfast—his coffee was enough for him, but this was a way for him to spend more time with his little brother, which made it worthwhile.

"I have a short business trip to California in a couple weeks, so when I see him this week, I'll ask if he can come over to stay with you."

"Cool!" Mokuba took a big bite of his waffle. "What do you guys even talk about when you meet for coffee?"

"A lot of things," he answered with an indifferent shrug. "He does most of the talking, usually."

"And you just sit there and listen."

"Yep." Kaiba turned a few pages in his newspaper to the continuation of the article he was currently reading.

"Why?"

"Because I find intelligence soothing." Ryou Bakura was no genius, but he was sufficiently thoughtful, attentive, and retentive for Kaiba to acknowledge him as intelligent.


	19. Melting

Ryou was working two to ten at the bakery that day, so he lounged about the apartment that morning, doing the laundry, cleaning the kitchen, dumping any expired items from the fridge. Keeping his hands busy kept him from overthinking things with Duke.

Later when he was at work, he got a text from Duke.

 **Do you want to watch the last episode of Roland tonight?**

That was right; they'd stopped watching it a couple weeks ago before the last week of classes, followed by his last week of school in the form of exams week. They'd agreed to watch it once the school year was over for him.

{I'll be home around 10:30, so we can if you don't mind staying up so late}

 **I don't mind! :D**

Duke's response was almost immediate, and it made Ryou's heart flutter.

* * *

Ryou munched on his Hot Pocket as the protagonist narrated the opening sequence with a heart-rending sonnet. Duke had spread a thin blanket over their laps when they first settled down together, and now, as Ryou chewed, Duke casually put his arm around Ryou's shoulders. Ryou had to make a mental effort to let himself relax against him.

It wasn't that hard, actually. They were already so close as friends, and they'd already spent so much of their time together, that it was easy to be comfortable. Even when Ryou had slumped sideways against Duke and the other's hand had fallen to rest on Ryou's chest, they were still comfortable.

And at the very end, as Roland's wife cried over his corpse in the falling snow, Ryou was comfortable with the fact that he'd cried a little there at the end. It surprised him, though, when Duke brushed aside Ryou's bangs unasked and wiped away a stray tear with his thumb. He started a little and started to sit up properly.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," Duke apologized warmly.

"No, you didn't, it's fine," Ryou assured, too nervous in that moment to notice Duke leaning in close for a kiss until their lips touched and he froze.

"Relax," Duke murmured, placing a warm hand on Ryou's waist and leaning in to kiss him again. Ryou allowed himself to do just that, relaxing into Duke's embrace. Once he did, just like that, it became easier. They simply _connected_ like they had the previous night. Duke's confidence seemed to wash away all of Ryou's self-conscious insecurities, and everything just felt _right_.

Ryou didn't need any more coaxing than Duke's gentle hand on his thigh, guiding Ryou into his lap as they kissed.

"You're so cute when your face is all pink like that." Duke's hands now rested quite comfortably on Ryou's hips, teasing him by rubbing his thumb on the Brit's stomach, just above his waistband. Ryou's hands had fallen to rest on Duke's shoulders by default, but he still felt the urge to run his fingers through Duke's hair. Duke's comment had made him blush more, but before Ryou had a chance to say a thing about it, Duke was kissing him again, more deeply, like last night, and Ryou was once more melting into him.

* * *

Finding the vein was easy, and he didn't have as much trouble with it as they said he would.

Idiots.

Seto Kaiba was not your average insomniac, after all.

He could have accepted his prescription in the form of an oral pill, but he was too impatient to accept a form of medication that took forty to sixty minutes to take effect. The injection was quicker, more efficient, and Kaiba wasn't the kind of man to have qualms about an intravenous medication.

After a few bouts of sleeplessness, he'd finally taken a bit of Ryou's advice and talked to a doctor about it. The doctor gave him a prescription, and the tiny slip of paper had been exchanged for a packet of drugs at a pharmacy.

This was his first time using it, so he depressed the plunger of the syringe with an air of skepticism, ready to write off the substance as ineffective and useless to him should he still be awake ten minutes from now. The full dosage having been administered, Seto neatly discarded the needle's tip, slapped a band-aid on the puncture, put away the syringe with the other tiny bottles of medication in his bottom night-stand drawer, and lay back on his bed. After a few moments, he flicked off the lights. He could already start to feel the effects of the sedative, and he couldn't help but sigh with relief.

It felt so wonderful to be freed from his own mind that he couldn't help but wonder at himself for never having tried drugs before now.

* * *

 **A/N : I'm sorry this is so short. I've been sitting on this chapter so long that I forgot what I was going to do with it. ^-^'**

 **In case you haven't** **figured it out, I've been craving Hot Pockets lately. I can't have them anymore, though, since I became allergic to dairy. :'(**


	20. Leech

The surface of the lake shivered as the wind blew across it, the grass rustling and the leaves shaking and the clouds chasing each other across a bright blue sky. On the side of a slight slope, two young men sat together as they watched the idyllic pastoral scene.

"It's lovely," Ryou commented politely, pleased with the place, but curious as to why Duke had made a point of bringing him here. Ninety minutes earlier as they got into Duke's car, the green-eyed teen had said that he wanted to take Ryou somewhere special. This was it, and it was nice, but Ryou didn't see what made it so special.

With a contented sigh, Duke lay back in the grass and tucked his hands behind his head as he gazed skyward. "Most kids think about running away from home at least once, don't you think?" he mused, changing the subject.

Ryou, with a curious look, turned to Duke and nodded his affirmation.

"I did once, when I was fifteen." Duke closed his eyes as the wind pushed away the clouds blocking the sun. Ryou lay beside Duke in the grass, on his side and looking down at him with interest. "My parents had just had an awful fight, something about how much money my dad had lost in some badly placed bets. He stormed out, and Mom took a six-pack from the fridge to her room. I was so frustrated with both of them that I took the keys to the car, got on the highway, and drove. I didn't know where I was going, and I didn't care, I just wanted to leave, you know?"

Ryou hummed in agreement as the sun was hidden by clouds yet again.

"Once I got on the highway, I just kept going straight as fast as I could, not caring about the speed limit or paying much attention to how fast I was going." He paused and opened his eyes, his expression quite serious as he asked, "Do you remember that sharp curve in the road not long before this exit?"

Ryou shook his head.

"I'll point it out on the way back, then. Anyways, by the time I got that far, I was pushing one-ten, going way too fast. I lost control of the car and almost drifted off-road, and I swear I honestly thought I was going to die. That the car was gonna flip and I'd die in the crash. I managed to keep it on the road, though, and I was so shaken up that I took the next exit and pulled over so I could calm down. That's how I found this place."

Ryou was touched by the story, flattered by the amount of trust Duke had placed in him by telling his story.

"I've never told anybody about that before."

"I'm glad you told me." Ryou leaned down and kissed Duke's forehead, his hair falling down to brush against Duke's cheek.

"Want to go for a swim?" Duke asked as Ryou pulled back. "It's too hot out here not to."

"I'm just fine without it, but you can if you want to."

"Come on, it'll be fine!"

"I'm sure that water's full of nasty critters anyways."

"Don't be so cynical."

"My cynicism keeps me alive, thank you very much," Ryou retorted, turning his nose up at the other.

"Fine then, suit yourself."

Ryou lay down in the same manner Duke had been just as Duke sprang up from the grass and took his shirt off.

"Are you sure you want to wait here?" Duke started to toe off his shoes, then take off his socks and deposit them all next to his shirt on the picnic blanket spread out beneath them.

"I'm quite certain." Ryou smiled demurely. "I'll just watch you have fun from here, and I'll be fine."

A half hour later, Duke was out of the water, letting the sun dry the droplets from his body as Ryou straddled his thigh, facing his foot.

"You need to stop squirming," the college student instructed sternly. "Or this is just going to hurt more."

"Just get it over with, and hurry!" Duke couldn't help but be freaked by the presence of a blood-sucking parasite on his lower leg after his swim. Ryou was trying to remove it for him, but he hadn't yet started because Duke wouldn't lie still. Ryou'd asked for a first aid kit and a cigarette lighter, both of which he'd obtained from Duke's car, but the latter made him nervous.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Duke fretted. Ryou was sitting on his leg to keep it still, but also to keep Duke from seeing what he was doing.

"If you ask me that one more time," Ryou huffed. "I'll stop trying to help you altogether."

"Okay, fine."

"Just lie back and relax." Ryou glanced over his shoulder to check that Duke had obeyed. "Good. Now tell me a story."

"A story? About what?"

"Anything, anything at all. It could be the plot synopsis for an old movie, or a personal experience, or anything you like. Just start talking." Ryou stuck the cigarette between his teeth and bent over Duke's leg as he clicked the lighter, trying to light it. Duke had quit smoking when Ryou moved in, using nicotene gum to wean himself off the substance since the smoke had agitated his roommate's lungs. He'd forgotten to throw out the extra pack in his car, though, and Ryou was glad that he had.

"Have you ever seen the movie Strange Brew? It's from the nineties, I think, and it's awful in the best way. It's about these two Canadian guys who love hockey and drink beer all the time. That's literally all they ever do. They even give some beer to their dog…"

As Duke obediently explained the plot of a ridiculous movie—Ryou wasn't paying too much attention, but he knew that there was something about a ghost possessing a pinball machine and the dog drinking so much beer that he could fly—his lover finally managed to light the cigarette and do so without inhaling any of the smoke. Holding the the little paper roll steady between his fingers, he pressed the burning end into the fat black leech on the other's shin. The creature immediately writhed, and after a couple moments of sustained contact, it detached, dropping off the leg with a gush of scarlet and a nasty squishing sound.

"…But as soon as I found it was a retelling of Hamlet, the whole thing started to make so much more sense and—"

"Die, abomination!" Ryou cried out, interrupting Duke as he stabbed the leech repeatedly with a new let cigarette, scorching the thing to death in an awfully bloody way. When it had stopped moving and seemed, for all intents and purposes, dead, he dropped the dead cigarettes onto the little trash pile he'd started next to the first aid kit.

"Everything okay down there?" Duke asked, fighting the smirk of amusement that wanted to overtake his features.

With a toss of his hair, Ryou coolly replied, "I'm all for the sanctity of life and whatnot, but parasites can just go straight to hell as far as I'm concerned. I'm not a pacifist like Yugi."

"Good to know." Duke stopped fighting the smirk.

"Oh crap."

"What? What's wrong?"

"I killed a level fifteen leech and all I got was five gold and a rusty dagger. This loot system sucks."

It took Duke a moment to process what he'd said, but once he had, he threw back his head and laughed heartily.

"You're such a geek."

"I know." Ryou looked over his shoulder and beamed at Duke momentarily before he set about disinfecting Duke's wound.


	21. Intimates

"Can I draw you?"

"Hm?" Ryou slightly lifted his face from its place buried in the pillow, his messy hair prettily framing his flushed face. He rubbed at his tired eyes and looked at Duke curiously. "You want to draw me?"

"Yes, just the way you are right now. May I?" Duke had been tempted to start drawing without asking Ryou, not wanting him to move an inch from his spot, but he'd thought better of it. If he was going to draw a nude portrait of his lover, then it would be best to at least ask permission.

"Hm..." Ryou dropped his face back into the pillow and closed his eyes again. "You're not aloud to show it to anyone."

"Thank you, love." Duke leaned down and kissed Ryou's forehead before sitting on an overturned laundry basket with his sketchbook and pencil, opening to a blank page. "You really are beautiful."

"Thank you, but I believe you've mentioned that before." Ryou's lips curved into a sleepy smile, but he was otherwise still.

"It doesn't stop being true just because I've said it before."

"And you never stop being poetic no matter how long we're together. Don't worry, though, I'll never tire of it."

"Good. I would hate for you to get tired of me."

"Oh my god."

"What?"

Ryou lifted his head, propped it on one arm, and said, "Duke, you're drawing me like one of you're French girls."

"You have no idea how hot you are when you say that." Duke wasn't joking, not in the slightest. Ryou was a multifaceted diamond, and the more facets of him Duke saw, the more beautiful he was.

"Flattery suits you too well." Ryou grinned languidly. "I like to see you on your knees speaking that way to me."

Duke felt his face starting to heat up. Ryou post-coitus was more than confident; he was a bit kinky too. Duke didn't know if he could finish this drawing in one sitting; he might become… preoccupied along the way.

"That could easily be arranged." The whisper fell from Duke's lips in a smooth, sultry tone—the very essence of melted chocolate.

"If you're my knight in shining armor, am I your lady fair?" Ryou's eyes sparkled with amusement."

Duke set aside his notebook, and dropped to one knee, reaching out to hold Ryou's hand with one of his own, placing his other hand over his heart.

"Anything for you, my love. I would walk to the ends of the earth for you, slay a dragon for you—"

"Would you train a dragon for me?" Ryou interrupted excitedly.

"Even if it meant that suffered a hundred burns, I would train that dragon for you until he's tame enough to eat from the palm of your hand." Duke brought Ryou's hand to his lips, kissing the back of it, then kissing the palm. He lifted his eyes to Ryou's as he kissed the end of his index finger, tongue flicking out to lap across the soft skin before sucking the tip between his lips.

"You're a hopeless rascal." Ryou's eyes sparkled with happiness as he removed his finger from Duke's mouth and reached up to tousle his hair. "Get back to your drawing, silly. I'm going to take a nap." Ryou tucked his arm in against his body and closed his eyes, smiling angelically as Duke chuckled to himself.

"As you wish."

* * *

Kaiba had been restless lately, more short-tempered than usual, and Mokuba was telling him (again) that he needed a vacation. He wasn't prepared for such drastic measures as that, though. It was probably a good time to call Duke again. It had been a while since he'd last seen the dice-master, and their encounters always put him in a better mood. Reducing his stress like that allowed him to think more clearly and be more productive. He was short on time at the moment, so he sent his peer a text.

 _Can you come over tonight?_

After sending the message, he tucked his phone away and went into a long meeting. It wasn't until it was over that he was able to check his phone again. He was surprised by Duke's response.

 **I'm sorry. I can't.**

 _When are you next available?_

 **I'm in a relationship now, so I can't come over anymore.**

Kaiba sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. The news wasn't really surprising, just a bit unexpected. He put his phone away and returned to working without responding, only texting him back when Duke texted him again a couple hours later.

 **I can hook you up with a friend, if you want.**

 _No_

His rejection was curt and cold. Seto didn't want to get his rocks off with a stranger. He'd picked Duke because he respected his intelligence and was attracted by his magnetic charm. And besides that, there was a bit of trust that he placed in him too, the trust that was inherently shared between people who'd slept together. Duke wasn't a stranger; he'd known him for a couple years. If he was going to have a light-o-love on the side, it couldn't be _just anyone_.

If he couldn't have Duke... he'd have to find a replacement. Someone with similar discretion and trustworthiness, someone else that he knew, someone else who was at least amiable with him.

Ryou came to mind, but he quickly attempted to shove that thought aside. Ryou was someone he found to be intellectually stimulating. Their occasional coffee-shop conversations were a different kind of stress-relief, and he didn't want to change their friendship.

The college student was _truly_ the first actual friend Seto Kaiba had ever made. He didn't want to lose that friendship by asking for a sexual component to be added to their relationship. That would be an unfair and untoward thing to ask.

That didn't leave him with any other options, though, and now that the idea of intimacy with Ryou had entered his mind, he couldn't entirely shake the thought. It would suddenly return to the forefront of his mind in a moment of peace when he was alone, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that.

Yes, the student was lovely and kind, and more understanding that Kaiba'd had any right to expect. He was candid, honest with his thoughts and intentions, so he could trust that the boy wouldn't try to take advantage of him. His heart was pure, even if he didn't see himself that way.

What would it be like to make that sweet, studious youth blush with pleasure? What would it feel like to kiss him? Would those lips be soft? What did his hair feel like? Were those locks as silky as Duke's? He wanted to feel the silvery white strands slipping through his fingers, wanted to grip it firmly as he held Ryou against him, kissing him fully, learning how _warm_ that body would feel against his own.

These fantasies were distracting, to say the least, but he remained determined not to act on them. He cared too much about preserving their friendship and not upsetting Ryou.

He did care about Ryou, at least as a friend. It mattered to him if Ryou was happy or upset, though he wasn't sure he knew what he'd do if he encountered Ryou in an unhappy state. Reassurance and comfort were not part of his skill-set. That was for the best, though, since he hardly needed those skills. He had Mokuba, and that was enough for him.

He'd have to learn to live without Duke.


	22. Runaway

"Are you doing well, Seto?" Ryou asked as he and Kaiba left the coffee-shop together. He was going to the library after this, which was in the same direction as KaibaCorp, so they were going to walk together until they reached the office building. "You seem lonely—more so than usual, I mean."

Maybe it was that tired look in his blue eyes, or the bored way he'd traced the edge of his coffee cup, but Ryou had a strong sense that the brunette wasn't feeling well. The executive didn't seem physically ill; if he had to comment on Kaiba's health, Ryou would say that he was as hale and hearty as ever, from what he could see. It was his heart that seemed troubled, not his body or his mind. If it were a rational problem, surely Kaiba would be able to remedy it for himself. If it were an emotional one, though, it would simmer below the surface and stay there a long time; he'd done it before, with his long-standing grudge against Yugi, so there was little doubt he'd do that again.

"I'm fine," he replied automatically, but his answer didn't convince Ryou at all. "Why do you ask?"

"You seem quite melancholy today." A rue observation, and Ryou snuck a glance at the brunette out of the corner of his eye as they walked along to see his reaction. "Is Mokuba doing well? It's been a while since I've seen him." If anything would be certain to cause Kaiba to look so troubled, it would be trouble with Mokuba.

"He's doing fine. He excels at his studies and he enjoys visiting the different KaibaLand locations with me." Seto looked a bit disgruntled, as if he thought Ryou suspected the brothers were bickering.

"I'm glad to hear that." The warm words carried Ryou's sincerity. "Mokuba's a good kid, and you've done a good job raising him."

The brunette's shoulders stiffened, and at first Ryou wondered if Kaiba was bothered by that comment, but then he noticed the traces of a faint blush dusted across his cheekbones, and Ryou broke out into a grin. He was stiff simply because he was awkward at accepting praise relating to anything other than his work.

"Thank you." His words were just as stiff as his shoulders, and Ryou had to suppress a small laugh. He didn't want Seto to think that he was mocking him. After a few moments of silence that felt uncomfortable for only one of them, Kaiba asked, "What makes me seem melancholy to you?"

He sounded genuinely curious, though it was thinly veiled. Ryou appreciated that Kaiba felt comfortable enough to simply be expressive with him.

"It's partially your eyes," the college student answered thoughtfully, giving the best answer he could. "They kept straying down when we were sitting together. And you were tracing the rim of your cup; you don't normally fidget like that, so it seemed like something was troubling you that you didn't know how to solve or address. And besides, you were sighing more than usual."

Kaiba scoffed. "I wasn't sighing."

"Oh, yes you were!" Ryou teased gently. "You're just unaware of how your melancholy manifests itself." After a moment, Ryou added more seriously, "Though I suspect you're at least aware of the melancholy itself."

He was correct, of course; Ryou was the only person who could understand him so well. He was observant and patient, and attentive to who Kaiba was as a human. He didn't see Kaiba as an asset, a resource, a celebrity, a duelist, an executive, a billionaire. He just saw Kaiba as a man and took him for what he was. That kind of compassion was so new to him that it inspired feelings he didn't know how to interpret. An odd warmth bloomed in his chest, uncomfortable but not unpleasant. His chest felt a bit restricted, but he could still breathe.

"You're not wrong," he confessed quietly, still staring straight ahead. He could trust Ryou with this, even if he had no desire to explain the cause of his malaise.

"I hope that it passes soon," Ryou replied softly, his voice the gentlest sound Kaiba'd heard all day. "It might take some time, but I hope that the situation remedies itself soon. You deserve to be happy, Seto."

Ryou'd said the same thing the night of the party, when he'd exorcised Gozaburo's ghost. Kaiba could feel his face getting hot. He was the only person who'd ever dared to speak to him like that. He didn't have the time to recover his composure before Ryou tripped over his own shoelace. Ryou began to fall forward, but Kaiba moved in front of his friend in time to catch him, hands on his shoulders to hold him up as he used his body to block him from falling face-down on the ground.

The student's hands had extended in front to catch himself as he fell, and they landed squarely on Kaiba's chest as he fell into him.

"Ah, thank you." Ryou straightened up when he'd repositioned his feet, smiling up at Kaiba as he blushed in embarrassment. "I'm a bit of a klutz sometimes."

The sidewalks were mostly empty at the moment, a fact that Kaiba was peripherally aware of. Ryou looked absolutely radiant, eyes sparkling as they gazed up at Kaiba. A semi-truck drove past them on the street, and as the gust of wind fluttered their hair and the bulk of the truck blocked them from others' view, Seto dipped his head down to press his lips to Ryou's. It was a small kiss, a soft one, shy and heartfelt, thought it lasted only for a second. For as long as the kiss lasted, the two of them seemed to be in a world of their own.

The truck passed, the air settled, and suddenly Seto was a few feet in front of him, hand covering his mouth, eyes slightly widened as if he was surprised by his own actions.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that." Kaiba turned and crossed the street, running out between cars as Ryou stood in shocked silence. He lifted his fingers to his lips as he turned around, feeling stunned.

It took him a short while to process what had just happened.

Seto Kaiba had kissed him, and he'd liked it.

No. He couldn't _like_ it. That would make him unfaithful, and he loved Duke! Duke didn't deserve to be cheated on!

But the more Ryou thought about the kiss, the more he realized that he cared for Kaiba, truly _cared_ about him. And that he wanted to kiss him again...

 _I'm such a horrible person_ , he thought bitterly, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He didn't feel like going to the library any longer, but he couldn't go back home either. He'd just feel horribly guilty. He wouldn't be able to face Duke.

No, he needed to go somewhere else. He needed to run away for a little while, at least until he felt like himself again.

* * *

"Pick up, pick up, pick up..." Duke muttered to himself as he called Ryou's cellphone for the tenth time in the past hour, praying that his boyfriend would answer his phone this time. Ryou had been out of touch for hours, and Duke was getting increasingly worried. He didn't consider himself a clingy boyfriend, but Ryou not answering his phone in hours, not coming home when he said he would, and not telling Duke where he'd planned on going before he disappeared into thin air.

It was dark outside, and just starting to rain, and Ryou didn't have a car or a jacket. He had his phone, but he wasn't answering—

The ringing ended and Duke heard the faint sound of someone breathing on the other end.

"Ryou? Ryou are you there? Are you okay?" Duke didn't mean to sound frantic, but his rapid-fire questions came out that way.

"I'm sorry." Ryou's words were a faint whisper, his voice breaking on a sob.

"Where are you? Are you safe? What's wrong?"

"Yes... I'm sorry, I just have to run away for a little while..." Ryou sounded like he was crying, and it made Duke's heart twist in his chest.

"Where are you, Ryou? Why do you want to run away? I'll come pick you up, just tell me where you are... Ryou?" He'd already hung up. Duke grabbed his keys and his windbreaker, and a hoodie for Ryou when he found him.

He'd mentioned running away; that always brought one place to mind for Duke, and it was as fair a guess as any that Ryou might be there, alone in his sadness, though Duke had no idea what had upset him. He could wait until he actually found Ryou before he tried to figure that out: Ryou's safety took priority right now. Anything else could be sorted out after he was found.


	23. Brightside

After almost an hour of driving through heavy rain, Duke reached his destination: the small pond he'd taken Ryou to just a couple weeks ago. It was a long shot, but it wasn't impossible.

He parked his car and grabbed a towel and his umbrella from the trunk. The area wasn't well lit, but Duke wasn't daunted by the darkness.

"Ryou!" he shouted, calling out in a voice that was too obscured by the rain. "Ryou, are you here!"

He began to approach the picnic area, where he figured he had the best chance of finding Ryou. It didn't take long for him to find a wet white and blue blob perched on a wooden bench.

"Ryou!" Duke called, breaking into a sprint as he ran over to him, sliding to a stop in the mud, but managing to stay on his feet. "Here, hold this." He passed off the umbrella to one pale hand as empty brown eyes stared back at him. Duke threw the beach towel around Ryou's shoulders and gently squeezed some of the water out of his hair.

"Come on, Ryou, let's go home." Duke's voice was warm and welcome, and he reached out to help Ryou stand.

"No, Duke—" Ryou whimpered, looking like he was going to start crying again.

"Let's get out of the rain, first, then we can talk about what happened." Duke's voice was firm and calm, and Ryou yielded to his will. Duke took the umbrella back from him and helped him stand up, putting an arm around his shoulders and holding the umbrella over both of them as he escorted him back to the car. He took the other beach towel from his trunk and let Ryou wrap himself with that too before bundling him into the passenger seat.

Duke started the car, setting the temperature to something warm that would revive Ryou from his soaked state.

"Please don't scare me like that, Ryou." Duke's bright eyes were serious, and Ryou couldn't bear to look at them. Duke gently took Ryou's chin in his hand and turned his head to face him. "Look at me, Ryou. I love you, and I would hate for anything bad to happen to you. It's not safe for you to run away and sit in the rain alone at night in the middle of nowhere. Promise me that you'll never do something like this again."

"I-I promise, Duke." Ryou wiped his face with the corner of the towel, starting to cry again. Duke leaned over and put his arms around Ryou, holding him close in spite of how wet he was. Duke didn't care, he just wanted Ryou to feel better.

"What happened, Ryou? Did someone touch you? Did someone hurt you?"

"N-No... I mean..." Ryou's breathing came in short, jagged gasps between sobs, and Duke rubbed his back comfortingly.

"What do you mean, Ryou?" Duke asked patiently. "Tell me what happened so I can understand."

"Kaiba and I kissed." Ryou hid his face in the towel.

"When? Where did this happen?" Duke kept his voice soft and patient to keep Ryou from getting more upset than he already was.

"It was after we had coffee today, we were walking back towards his office, and I tripped, and he caught me, and—I'm so sorry!" He started sobbing again, but Duke shushed him and took Ryou into his arms once more.

"It sounds like it was an accident, Ryou. It's okay, you don't have to apologize for that."

"It wasn't an accident!" Ryou jerked, as if he wanted to pull away, but Duke hugged him tighter, and Ryou calmed down a bit, just shivering as he rested his face against Duke's shoulder. His voice quivered as he whispered, "It was on purpose, and I... I-I liked it."

"Did you kiss him, or did he kiss you?" Duke asked softly. He didn't sound angry, didn't act angry at all. He just cared about getting Ryou home safe and sound right now. Besides that, he had a suspicion that Kaiba was the only one at fault here.

"I-I don't know..."

"It was Kaiba, wasn't it? He initiated the kiss?"

"Maybe, but I liked it!" Ryou whined, and Duke began to understand.

"You don't need to feel guilty about that, Ryou," he soothed, pressing a kiss to his cold cheek.

"But I care about him too!" Ryou was starting to cry again. "I feel so confused... I love you too, but Seto..."

Duke took a deep breath, slow and calm.

"You're freezing cold, Ryou. We need to get you out of those wet clothes." Duek gave Ryou one last squeeze and released him, turning to the steering wheel so he could drive them home. It was a long drive, after all, and the sooner they got on the road, the better.

"Are you mad at me?" Ryou whispered pitifully after several minutes of silent shivering.

"I'm not mad at you, Ryou. Not in the least." Duke reached over and pat his boyfriend's shoulder. "You can't help the way you feel. I understand. Kaiba's a good kisser, too. I know it's hard to resist that"

"H-How do you know that?" Ryou gasped, his tears abating, but he was becoming more confused.

"Because I've slept with him before. Just a few times, but we were never dating."

Ryou fell silent, and remained that way for a long time, trying to regain his composure and process what Duke had told him.

"What I'm trying to say is, it's okay for you to like him. You don't have to feel guilty about that, because you can't control your feelings. I'm glad that you told me about this, but since it upset you so much, I wish you'd just come to me to talk about it first. Don't run away from me; I don't want you to be afraid of me."

"I-I'm not afraid o-of you, Duke," Ryou stammered. "I was just... afraid of myself."

"When that happens, _come home_. Even if your mind is chaos, I want to know that you'll at least be physically safe. Once you're home, we can figure things out together." Duke reached over and squeezed Ryou's hand in his. "You can come to me with _anything_ , Ryou. I'm not going to judge you. I just want to help you."

"Thank you." Ryou was experiencing a lot of emotional turbulence at the moment, an odd mixture of guilt, relief, confusion, and paranoia. He wasn't prepared to put it all into words just yet. He kept holding Duke's hand as he drove, closing his eyes and just letting his head rest back against the seat. He lifted his head when he felt the car slowing down, only to see that they had arrived at the Kaiba mansion.

"Why are we here, Duke?"

"Because it's closer, and the sooner you change out of those clothes, the better. I don't want you getting sick. Besides, we need to talk this out with Kaiba and come to an understanding."

"Do we have to do that _now_?" Ryou asked timidly, unprepared for this conversation, unprepared to face Kaiba again.

"Yes. The sooner, the better."

* * *

"It's okay, Mokuba, it was only a dream," Seto assured as he carried his little brother back to bed. Mokuba'd had a nightmare about one of the videogames he'd _begged_ his brother to let him play—and this was exactly why he'd said no at first to letting him play it at all. Seto was still dressed in his work clothes. Mokuba had interrupted his working from his home office.

"Seto, we need to talk."

The voice was certainly an unexpected one, and Kaiba turned around slowly to see if it's owner was truly there. Yes, that was Duke standing at the end of his hallway, with Ryou wrapped in a towel and hiding behind him, just barely visible. Steely blue eyes met fierce green ones, the two of them staring each other down for a few tense moments. Mokuba kept his face hidden against his brothers neck, oblivious to the tension in the air.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Kaiba," one servant girl said apologetically as she appeared behind his unexpected guests, looking flustered. "I'll take them to the sitting room to wait for you."

"Please do, and get Ryou some dry clothes while they wait for me."

"Yes, sir."

Seto turned and carried Mokuba back to his room, setting him down on the bed and, at his request, checking the closet for monsters. The brunette took his time putting his brother back to bed, just sitting on the edge of it and holding his hand when Mokuba asked his older brother to sit with him just a bit longer.

"You're not allowed to play that game anymore, alright?"

"Alright," Mokuba sighed, accepting this rule since he himself was frightened by the idea of playing it again. "What are Duke and Ryou doing here?"

"I don't know, but I'll see what they want and send them on their way."

"Okay. Please tell them I say hi."

"I will." Seto leaned down and kissed Mokuba's forehead, pulling the covers up around his narrow shoulders. "Sleep well, kiddo. Just remember that you're safe because I'll never let anything happen to you."

"Goodnight, Seto. I love you."

"I love you too."

* * *

"We should just go, Duke. We can make plans with him to talk about this another time." Ryou was huddled on the hearth of the lit fireplace, combing his hair out with his fingers as the heat helped it dry faster. He was wearing a fresh set of clean, nondescript clothes provided to him by the maid, a towel resting across his shoulders to keep his shirt dry while his hair was still wet.

"We're already here, and we're not leaving until we've talked this out and you've warmed up a bit more," Duke replied firmly from the armchair on the other side of the fireplace. He was determined to resolve the matter before Ryou became more upset by it. Surely his partner would torture himself over the incident if they drew this out any longer. "Are you sure that you're not sick?"

"I don't feel sick," Ryou answered demurely before sipping tea from the mug he'd been brought only a few minutes ago. He hadn't even asked for it, but it was the kind of tea he liked: lavender tea with a spot of honey, sweet and calming. That must have been Kaiba's doing. Ryou stared into his tea and sighed. Seto meant well, he really did. He hadn't meant any harm, and Ryou _knew_ that. Duke insisted that he was still responsible for his actions, though, and that he had to answer for what he'd done. Ryou was honestly scared that a fight would break out between the two men, and that would undoubtedly be a disaster.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting," the brunette said as he entered the quiet sitting room, closing the door behind himself and approaching his guests, but staying on the other side of the room. He didn't sit down, but remained standing, towering over both of them from a small distance.

"That's alright, it was impolite of us to show up this late at night without warning." Ryou spoke before Duke; he wanted to do his best to keep the peace, and he could see that Kaiba was making an effort to be polite, and he wanted to encourage that.

"I assume you wouldn't have come unless you needed to discuss an urgent matter?" Kaiba's words lilted towards the end, forming a question as his eyes flicked between his guests with a neutral, serious expression. He looked a bit tired, and perhaps a bit annoyed. but he had the right to be irritated.

"Yes, it's an urgent matter." Duke stood up to face the brunette, fearless and unwavering. "I think you should date us."

"What?" Kaiba and Ryou spoke in shocked unison. Neither of them had been expecting him to say _anything_ like this.

"Ryou told me that you kissed him today," Duke continued in a calm, professional tone. "I know how you are, Kaiba; you wouldn't touch someone like that unless you truly cared about them. I'm right, aren't I?"

A faint dusting of pink touched the brunette's cheeks. Embarrassed and uncomfortable, Kaiba crossed his arms over his broad chest and broke eye contact, turning his head to stare into the fire.

"And Ryou, you said that you liked it, didn't you?" Duke turned to face his partner, who's cheeks darkened with a warm blush. Kaiba couldn't help but cast a swift glance at Ryou, just to see if that was true. "And you said that you still love me, but you _also_ care about Kaiba. I care about Kaiba too, and I think he cares about us, even if he won't say it." Duke looked at Kaiba expectantly, a smug smirk tugging at his lips.

"I do find you both more likable than most people," Kaiba grudgingly admitted.

"If Kaiba cares for us," Duke continued, turning to Ryou and extending a hand to help him stand. Ryou took it, hesitantly rising to his feet and standing at Duke's side. "And we care for him, then I think we should include him in our relationship."

"What exactly are you proposing?" Seto was utterly baffled by Duke right now.

"Ryou and I are already dating. He cares about you, and you know I'd welcome you back, if you'd have us." Duke let those words hang in the air for a few moments. "You probably need some time to think this over, though, and we'll give you that. Thank you for hearing us out."

And with that, Duke lead Ryou out of the room, his partner too confused and numb to stop him or do more than glance back at the brunette in parting.

Kaiba sat down, hard. What the hell just happened?


	24. Uncertainty

"I think I'm just going to shower and go to bed," Ryou announced as soon as they got home. He'd been quiet for the whole drive, keeping his eyes closed as he rested, which prevented Duke from trying to talk to him. He wasn't ready to talk, about any of this.

"Ryou, can I please talk to you for a minute after you shower?"

The college student paused in his path towards his bedroom. It was a question, not a command or a request. He didn't have to say yes if he didn't want to. It was up to him.

"Okay."

"Thanks."

Later, Ryou had blow-dried his hair and was wearing warm, comfortable pajamas while Duke took his temperature, wary of his partner catching ill from his time spent in the rain. The plastic thermometer beeped, and Duke pulled it out, checking the digital display.

"No fever—not yet, at least—but your temperature is a bit low. Do you want some tea?"

"A small mug of chamomile, please," Ryou replied quietly. He pulled the blanket around his shoulders closer to himself as he pulled his legs up underneath him on the couch. Duke moved away to wash the thermometer and put the kettle on. The water boiled quickly, and Duke brought Ryou his tea, sitting beside him on the couch with a serious expression.

"I want to apologize for not speaking with you about my idea first," he began. "I'm sorry for springing that on you without any prior notice or asking for your permission beforehand. I want to know what you think of it, and if you think you'd be okay with that. If you need more time to think, that's fine. Take all the time you need, and just let me know when you're ready."

Ryou traced the rim of his small mug, staring into his herbal tea as if it would give him answers. After a bit of silence, he looked up.

"It's just something I've never considered before."

"Polyamory, you mean?"

"Yeah." Ryou sipped his tea, though it was still hot enough to burn the tip of his tongue. "I guess I just need time to adjust to the idea before I can know if I want that or not."

"That's only fair." Duke pressed a chaste kiss to Ryou's forehead. "If you have any questions or doubts, you can come to me anything."

"I want..." Ryou began, then nibbled on his bottom lip uncertainly. Duke had been about to stand up, but he settled back down, waiting as Ryou sifted through his thoughts. "I want Seto to be happy. And I want to stay friends with him, at the very least." He spoke slowly, thinking out loud. "I... I liked it when he kissed me, and I think it would be nice to be loved by him. But... I don't know how we'd make it work, assuming he says yes. I feel like it'd be too easy for someone to get insecure or jealous, or to feel neglected."

"We can figure those things out along the way," Duke assured, brushing back Ryou's still-damp hair in a reassuring gesture. "We'll start slow, and we'll talk through everything so that we don't have any problems. Okay?"

"Okay. But that assumes that Kaiba says yes."

"I think he will, he just needs some time to realize that it's what he wants."

"About that... when were you and Kaiba involved?"

"Before you and I started dating, after his party. Remember how he wrote his number on my arm?"

Ryou nodded.

"That's why. We'd been making out, but we were interrupted, so I asked for a rain check."

"Well, giving you his number was also his way of giving _me_ his number," Ryou pointed out gently. "After I exorcised his father's ghost in the library, he had a lot of questions, and I didn't have the time to explain it all then."

"You did what?" Duke blinked at him in shocked surprise.

"I wanted some time alone in a quiet place, so I went to the library," Ryou explained. "There were a lot of ghosts there and they warned me about Gozaburo's ghost, saying that he was still tormenting his son. Then Kaiba and Gozaburo entered a little bit later, and I was ready for them."

"You exorcised the ghost of Kaiba's _father_?"

"Adoptive father," Ryou corrected. "And he only deserves that title in the legal sense. He was barely a parent to either of them."

"How do you know that?"

"The ghosts told me."

"Of course, why didn't I realize?" Duke bumped the heel of his hand against his forehead in a gesture of mock revelation, making Ryou giggle.

"I'm really tired, so I'm going to go to bed now, okay?"

"Okay. Sleep well, dear." Duke kissed Ryou's cheek and let his partner retreat to his bedroom. He couldn't be entirely certain that Kaiba would accept his proposition, but he hoped that he would. It would be quite an experience for all of them, even if it only lasted for a short while. Seto and Ryou probably had the most bonding to do, since Duke had already slept with each of them and they had only kissed once. There would be time to remedy that, though. There would be time, if Kaiba gave them a chance.

* * *

Duke's proposition had been more startling for the brunette than Duke probably realized. It kept him awake that night, his mind processing the idea, looking at it from all perspectives as he tried to decide what he should do.

First of all, he'd never dated _anyone_ before, so he wasn't sure how he'd date two people at once. Would that just be three people at dinner instead of two? Three people in bed instead of two? Odd. Very odd. But not unpleasant. Or would they all be separate? Three overlapping relationships existing in tandem, but not entirely overlapping? Duke's relationship with Ryou, Ryou's relationship with Seto, and Seto's relationship with Duke. What would they technically call that? It was like a love triangle without any conflict.

How would his relationships with those two affect Mokuba? It would be impossible to keep secret from his brother, since he'd certainly catch on sooner or later.

Seto didn't know what a relationship with one person would require of him, in terms of time, attention, energy, resources—would dating two people require twice as much from him, or only half as much? What would be asked of him? What would they expect of him? How would this be different from what he'd already had with Duke, or with Ryou, for that matter?

This was all very perplexing to him, and it was clear that he wasn't going to settle on a solution tonight. No, he'd need more time.

* * *

"Since Kaiba and I are the ones who are still uncertain about this, do you think he and I should meet to talk about it?" Ryou was playing on his old handheld game system as he lay on their couch, Duke making dinner in the kitchen. The gaming system was several years old, but it still worked perfectly and he still played games on it that he'd loved for years.

"I don't think that could hurt," Duke replied. "I think you should ask him out for dinner or something."

"That sounds so formal, though."

"He's a formal person. I think it would help him to feel comfortable."

Ryou bit his bottom lip. "I'm not sure if I'll be comfortable with that, though."

"You'll be fine, dear. And if that makes you nervous, you could ask him to talk about it over coffee. That's what you two do after all, isn't it? Maybe that familiarity would be good for both of you, make it easier to discuss."

"That's not a very private place to talk, though. And he is a public figure, so I wouldn't want us to draw anyone's attention with a conversation like that."

That's a good point." Duke thought on the matter for a minute. "

"I know that a phone-call is out of the question, because I rely partially on visual cues—gestures, microexpressions, eye contact, things like that—to help me understand Kaiba when we're talking."

"That might've been more convenient for both of you, but it also would've been less effective," Duke mused as he cooked.

"Yeah. Maybe I should just ask him if he wants to talk about it and where he thinks we should meet?"

"That's not a bad idea."

Ryou texted Kaiba asking just that, and he received a response within minutes.

 _We can discuss it over dinner. My house, Thursday, at 7. I'll send someone to pick you up._

Having a private dinner at the Kaiba mansion was a daunting prospect, but it was better than being in a public place where they might be overheard.

{Thank you. I look forward to it.}

He looked forward to it, but was equally nervous about it. That was okay, though. He'd be ready when the time came.

More or less.

* * *

 **A/N: This chapter is dedicated to my sweet, supportive kouhai! You know who you are. ;)**


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